


Right Here Waiting

by NyxAqua



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Being split up and getting back to one another, F/F, Guess it technically counts as a slow burn?, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2018-11-30 01:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11452968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxAqua/pseuds/NyxAqua
Summary: Lena and Kara are determined to get married despite Lillian’s disapproval of their relationship. Moments before their impromptu wedding, an alien scouting party attacks Metropolis, stopping them in their tracks. In the chaos afterward, Kara is confronted by Lillian who forces her to choose between her relationship with Lena or the opportunity to gain vital intelligence that could prevent the invading aliens from succeeding here on Earth. Kara subsequently embraces her Kryptonian destiny and chooses to save Earth, becoming Supergirl in the process. Lena, on the other hand, wakes in the hospital to news that Kara Danvers perished in the attack and must deal with the consequences of that loss. Months later, the two are reunited but as CEO of LuthorCorp and as Supergirl. Supergirl must weigh the new choice to reveal herself as Kara Danvers to Lena or face the wrath of Lillian Luthor and put the safety of the world at risk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks goes to my write or die, sten06 (@stennnn06) for all of her encouragement, read throughs, and edits on this fic thus far.
> 
> I take full responsibility for all errors.
> 
> Come yell at me @nevertobeships :)

The early morning June sun warmed their backs as they comfortably jogged along the Charles River. Both young women were laughing at one another as they dodged the other people on the path. They were a striking pair and many people stopped to watch as they passed, their carefree and innocent nature not only curious but also contagious to all those who witnessed it. 

“Are you keeping up back there?” the one slightly leading the pair yelled over her shoulder. She had beautiful chocolate colored hair and brilliant blue eyes. Her smile was bright and she had an air of confidence about her.

“Kara, you know I can’t keep up with you!” Lena had slowed considerably, jogging now, as they broke away from the others on the path. “I don’t know how you do it,” she panted. She tightened the pony tail that held her long black hair and wiped the sweat from her brow. 

Kara also slowed and turned, now jogging backwards quite effortlessly as she studied her girlfriend. “Someone must be tired. You can usually go further than this with me.”

“Perhaps if you hadn’t kept me up half the night with other physical activities I wouldn’t be so tired this morning.” Lena innocently grinned back. 

“I believe someone kept begging me for more. Who could that have been? Ah yes, it was my insatiable girlfriend.” She stopped jogging and let Lena catch up to her. Grabbing Lena’s hips, she brought their bodies together and placed a quick but teasing kiss on her lips. 

“Ugh, I’m all sweaty and gross and you look like you are completely put together.”

“I kinda like you all sweaty and gross,” Kara laughed, kissing her again this time deeper and more intimate.

Lena gently pushed Kara back and started to run again. “Let’s see if we can get you all sweaty.”

Kara laughed again as she watched Lena run ahead of her. She was totally in love with her. She had never thought she’d find someone that would affect her so much but she had been completely taken by Lena from the moment they met. It was as if she had created Lena herself from her own dreams and wishes. They complemented one another perfectly. 

She had been quite lonely in Boston before she met Lena. As an alien to this planet, she never felt like she belonged. Her adoptive sister, Alex, had done her best to help her fit in and provide her emotional support throughout her teenage years but Alex had gone to college a year before her and the physical distance seemed to emphasize their personal differences as well. They had remained close during that transition but did not have the closeness that Kara had craved. 

Her decision to move to the east coast for college was fueled by her desire to be closer to her superhero cousin. She hoped being closer to him would lessen her lingering loneliness and the constant ache for Krypton but, like Alex, Kal was older (at least on this planet) and leading his own life, a life where it was painfully obvious that she had no role. He had maintained throughout her life here on Earth that their separation was best for her well-being and that he needed to keep her ancestry and relationship to him a secret from not only the public but also his growing list of enemies. 

After Kal had found her and her pod, he worked with the DEO and the Danvers to ensure that Kara was raised as a normal child in every way possible. They had all worked together to forge Kara’s birth records and adoption papers. Kara, in turn, practiced her English and the fabricated story of her life on Earth. Most importantly she learned to ignore the powers given to her by the yellow sun and gave up on the mission her mother had set forth for her. Kal didn’t need her and she felt foolish because a part of her desperately needed him. 

Throughout her adolescence years and now into her adult life, Kal kept his distance. He had explained to her, very briefly, on the eve that he left her after placing her with the Danvers, that Earth was a dangerous place. Even though they were physically stronger than mankind, the humans were capable of finding ways of banding together and hurting them. He showed her accounts of the mankind’s history, tales of humans persecuting those who were different from them even amongst their own kind. 

_ ‘Never show your powers to anyone, Kara. Do you understand?’ _

_ ‘But why, Kal?' _

_ He put his arm around her and she couldn’t help but notice the similarities between him and his father, Jor-El, and to an extent her own father. ‘Because I don’t want anything to happen to you. There are humans that would take you, experiment on you, because of your abilities. Others would fear you, and all of the work that I’ve done to demonstrate that we Kryptonians are good would be tarnished.’ _

_ ‘Surely I could help you if you taught me how to use them right!’ she begged. ‘And then I would be able to protect myself too!’ _

_ He exhaled sadly. ‘Perhaps one day but first you need to learn to live like a human. Being able to disguise yourself as one of them needs to be one of your greatest strengths.’ _

_ She simply nodded in response. It was an odd sensation, feeling these powers course through her not knowing how to harness them yet but being told that doing so was her greatest priority.  _

_ ‘I won’t be coming back much,’ he continued. ‘It’ll be best for us both if I limit our interactions. You can always e-mail or call but this will probably be the last time we see one another for a while.’ _

_ Her heartbroke. And she was surprised by the feeling because she had yet to have time to properly grieve the loss of her parents and Krypton. How could she still feel after all of that had happened? Kara was confused too. She had no idea what he meant by ‘e-mail or call’ but she had confidence in herself to figure it out. She’d do anything to keep in touch with Kal and so she accepted his conditions without much argument.  _

Over the next couple of years, her youthful understanding turned to frustrated loneliness at his distance. He interacted regularly with her adoptive parents and eventually Alex when she joined the DEO, but he always kept himself from her. He didn’t even join them as Clark Kent for holidays. She would later learn that he had not even told his best friend, Lex, or his girlfriend, Lois, about her. And much to her disappointment, Kal kept this distance up even with them living only an hour apart from one another once she moved to Boston.

But the loneliness she felt, despite being unwanted, had allowed her to explore herself and the possible life paths she could take. Within four years of college, she had earned three degrees quietly; with few friends and therefore few distractions this was an easy task for someone of her intelligence. Despite her talent at mathematics and the sciences, and to the disappointment of the art department, she took up a journalism internship for the National Star in Boston, one of the nation’s largest media outlets, when she graduated. And it was this internship that had brought Lena into her life and an end to her loneliness. 

Her first assignment was to contribute to the organization’s magazine feature about the top twenty-five rising stars under the age of twenty-five. The editor randomly assigned the year’s hot-shot list across the interns and Kara was given the assignment of Lena Luthor, a first-year graduate student at MIT who was making ground-breaking contributions in biomechanical engineering. 

Kara was intrigued by Miss Luthor’s story not only because of her obvious intelligence and talents, but also because of Kal’s connection to the Luthor family. Since Lex and Superman’s duel over Metropolis a few years previous, the Luthor family and their corporation had been desperately trying to separate themselves from Lex’s actions. Kal, because of his insistent distance, never confided in her what had actually happened that day between himself and Lex, but she had, of course, followed every news story about it for herself. Kara was impressed that Lillian and Lena Luthor had set out to right the LuthorCorp ship in the aftermath. She couldn’t have asked for a more interesting piece as her first professional foray into journalism. 

And Kara knew instantly that Lena was more than just a story, a piece to be written. As she entered the coffee shop where she was meeting the youngest Luthor for their first interview, Kara was entranced by Lena from the moment she saw the dark haired woman at a table, hunched over a notebook, large glasses sliding down her nose. Even if Kara had not been there to see her, she knew she wouldn't have been able to resist the pull she felt toward Lena, one that kept her putting one foot in front of the other as she approached Lena’s table. There was an air about Lena, a vibe, some sort of specific energy, that Kara was immediately addicted to. It was like she could see Lena and only Lena from the moment she laid eyes on her. And when Lena’s eyes met her own, Kara knew she was in trouble because there was no way she could return to a life without Lena in it. She had never wanted someone so much as she did Lena, wanted to take her into her arms, to hold her, love her, as she saw a similar pain and loneliness in Lena’s eyes. Over the course of their interview her feelings took on a life of their own as she realized the two had so much in common outside of this pain and loneliness. And Lena must have sensed it too because it was she who took Kara’s own coffee cup and wrote her number on it and insisted they have another coffee date, this one off the record.

As Kara started to run down the path in Lena’s wake, she felt the happiness of the last two and a half years nearly burst out of her. Their relationship hadn’t always been easy because of family, their personalities, and their work. Lillian had opposed their relationship right from the start and the Danvers, although warm and welcoming, were distant because of the nature of their secret lives as members of the DEO. Nevertheless, both of them realized that they could build their own family with one another and didn’t let their real families stand in their way. They were both so similar in this way as well as others, especially in their intelligence and stubbornness. These traits had led to some heated arguments but at the end of the day, they always resolved things with one another. And despite their differences in socioeconomic status and family prestige, they had built something beautiful and rare with one another. It was a relationship filled and cultivated with the purest love. Watching Lena run in front of her, seeing the playful smile on her face as she looked back over her shoulder at her, Kara swelled with pride. Lena was her world, perfect in every way. She could watch her for years, for forever, and that was exactly what she planned to do. 

“I can still outrun you, you know!” Kara sped forward until she had pulled even with Lena and then matched her pace. They quietly continued down the path for a few moments, the only sounds were their shoes slapping against the pavement. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” Kara asked, eyeing Lena again. 

Lena turned and beamed at Kara. “However much you do, I can assure you it’s not as nearly as much as I love you.” She ended this declaration by sticking her tongue out and playfully bumping her shoulder into Kara’s. 

After two miles of comfortable silence, Lena slowed to a walk and then stopped fully, turning to look over the river. She too had been thinking a great deal about her and Kara’s relationship lately and how best to take the next step. They both had essentially proposed to the other in their own way, neither caring for anything public or outlandish. To many, Lena surmised, it would not even be a formal engagement. There were no rings, no social media announcements, no parties. They had merely laid in bed one lazy Saturday morning, months ago, and charted their future together. It had always been “when we’re married.” It was never questioned. They both agreed upon a small wedding which was much more Kara’s style and Lena agreed that their wedding should be something celebrated only between them, a few friends, and family. She dreaded the idea of it becoming a societal event with photographers, caterers, and hundreds of people neither of them knew, people who would only be in attendance because of the Luthor name. But there was one thing standing in the way of it all, one thing that threatened their future together: Lillian.

Lena knew of her mother’s dislike for Kara from the moment she had brought up Kara’s name a few months after they had started dating. It was not a name Lillian Luthor recognized and therefore she knew that Kara Danvers was not worthy of Lena’s time, name, or money. When Lena had returned from boarding school, she found her mother to be even more domineering and controlling than before. Lena had often thought how lucky she was to have been in Europe and out of the way when Lex lost his mind and attacked Metropolis although a part of her wondered if she could have stopped him had she been there for him. Whatever had transpired when Lex was finally defeated by Superman and hauled away, had changed Lillian. Still to this day Lena didn’t know the whole truth of what had happened, only what was released via the media. But she did know that whatever had happened had changed her mother for the worse. Lillian had never been that warm towards her to begin with, but with Lex in jail Lillian had become even more overbearing in Lena’s life. It was as if she thought that by controlling Lena’s life she would regain some control on her own world. 

And Lillian seemed to love nothing more than to attempt to control Lena’s social life. At the beginning of the relationship, Lillian always referred to Kara as ‘the crush’ or the ‘last youthful hurrah’ before Lena buckled down for her future. But when reports of how serious the relationship had become traveled from Boston to Metropolis, Lillian vowed to put an end to it. She had called Lena back home for the weekend, guised as a business trip for LuthorCorp, that turned into an all out assault of Lena and her relationship with Kara. It was the biggest fight they had ever had. Lillian pulled out all the stops. She complimented and charmed and cooed at Lena, telling her how she deserved the world only to turn nasty and resort to baiting and threatening her when Lena would not cave. 

And then, in a move that took Lena totally by surprise, Lillian seemed to resign from the argument. She stopped bringing up Kara all together and detoured every discussion from Lena’s love life. Lena had taken it as a good sign, but Kara wasn’t so sure. Her confidence in Lillian Luthor had waned throughout her relationship with Lena and she was not ready to fully trust the woman yet. Sure enough, true to Kara’s gut instinct, Lillian struck. But it wasn’t an outright, single attack, but rather a series of extreme passive aggressive moves. Lillian spent the next year and a half pretending that Kara simply did not exist. Invitations to the Luthor estate for holidays and parties never came, she kept Kara off the guest lists for all formal events Lena was required to attend for LuthorCorp. More painfully, to Lena at least, was Lillian’s constant stream of suitors for her. It was a constant struggle to let them all down after Lillian built them up. And Lena knew it was this repeated denial to the other socialite young adults that had cultivated her reputation as a cold bitch. 

But none of that mattered, though, when Lena was in Boston with Kara. She loved their studio apartment which had become more of a home to her than the Luthor estate. It was small but warm. Lena loved being surrounded by evidence of their relationship and of Kara’s presence. Kara’s paintings on the wall, her jacket thrown over the back of a chair at their little glass dining set, crates of Kara’s notepads and journals in the corner, and Lena’s obscene collection of textbooks and academic journals stacked on the bookcases and in piles around the apartment. It was a soothing chaos. Lena struggled every day to leave their sanctuary, to leave Kara’s sleepy form, and venture out into the real world. But the real world was always calling, pulling from the edges for them to be a part of it. With her graduation two weeks away, Lena could feel this pull even stronger than before and she was ready to face it, but only with Kara at her side.

“I’m going to Metropolis this afternoon. I’m going to tell her,” Lena declared, her eyes never leaving the view of the river. 

Kara whipped her head around at those words. “Today?” There was fear in her question.

Lena nodded in response. “And I want you to come with me.”

“I think that will make it worse, worse than it’s already going to be, Lena.”

“You don’t have to be there with me when I tell her – I agree with you on that. But I want you in the city with me.”

“What do you think she is going to say?”

Lena turned and smiled at her. “Whatever it is, I’m marrying you, Kara Danvers. No matter what,” she assured her. 

Kara smiled sheepishly back. “Okay then. If you are sure…”

Lena let out a laugh that echoed down to the water’s edge. “You know, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my entire life.”

“I love you, Lena,” Kara said again. She wondered if she’d ever get tired of saying that or if Lena would ever not smile back at her when she did. 

“And I love you.” Lena folded herself into Kara’s arms, letting their mutual love wash away any fears she had.  

They stood there in their embrace, each lost in their own thoughts, as they gazed out over the river. But too soon for Kara’s liking, Lena pulled back. She softly took Kara’s hand and began slowly leading her back along the path toward their apartment so that they could get ready for Metropolis. 

************************************************************************************

Lena smoothed the tight navy blue dress down her curves, trying to push out wrinkles that did not exist. She didn’t dare to present herself to Lillian looking like anything other than a respectable Luthor. It was expected at all times that Lena be the utmost professional, the perfect debutante. And although Lena could get away with a more casual appearance in Boston, just being in Metropolis where her mother’s friends or worse, her spies, could catch a glimpse of her at any time was enough to make Lena try harder to look the part as the youngest Luthor. 

Kara walked up behind her, her face appearing over her shoulder in the mirror. “You look amazing, as always, Lena.”

“Well we can’t have her fixating on anything else now can we? Better to not give her any more ammunition.” Lena sighed as she again smoothed out the dress before Kara took her hands and wrapped both of their arms around her. 

“Remember,” Kara whispered softly in her ear, “no matter what.”

Lena smiled at their reflection, letting her eyes meet Kara’s in the mirror. “No matter what,” she repeated slowly. They stayed like that for a moment, slightly swaying as if they were dancing, before Lena pulled herself away and began to adorn herself with her jewelry. 

“Are you going to stay here or go out and do some exploration of the city?” she asked. 

Kara looked around the room and then out the window, weighing her choices. “Hmm, I think I’ll stay here and start unpacking the boxes we sent down last week.”

“Good idea. This place could use a little more you and a little less Lillian.” 

They were in Lena’s Metropolis apartment which had been a gift from her father on her eighteenth birthday. Unlike their apartment in Boston, it was quite large, with four bedrooms and a formal dining room. It was very chic and modern. They had already moved their winter clothes to Metropolis as well as most of Lena’s books. The boxes that Kara would be unpacking contained a lot of her own books and notebooks from when she was in college as well as some of her art supplies. 

As Lena put on her heels, she could see LuthorCorp out of the bank of windows in their bedroom. It was only a few blocks away, easy walking distance for her when she took up her position there after graduation. And it was a short metro ride for Kara to the television news outlet where she would start another internship in September. Although she much preferred their small studio apartment back in Boston, Lena felt that this future Metropolis home was becoming warmer and brighter with the presence of Kara’s things. She was already planning to convert one of the bedrooms into a joint office for them both and another bedroom into a small library and art studio. She hoped it would become just as intimate and homey as their place in Boston once they permanently moved into it. 

The door buzzer brought her out of her thoughts. She smoothed her dress once more and joined Kara out in the living room who was standing by the door, waiting with Lena’s purse and phone. 

“I hope it goes okay.” She was hesitant to let Lena leave – something just didn’t feel right about this. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but ever since they had landed in Metropolis she had become nervous. 

“Me too.” Lena kissed Kara deeply and then pulled back, cupping Kara’s face in her hands. “But no matter what, I’m yours.”

“And I’m yours.”

Kara sat in the silent apartment for a long time after Lena left. She couldn’t quite shake the eerie feeling that something was wrong. As the rays of the afternoon sun spilled between the buildings of downtown Metropolis into the apartment, she pulled a box toward her and sliced it open, convinced that if she just kept herself busy the foreboding feeling would dissipate. 

************************************************************************************

Lillian’s home office had always been gaudy and extravagant to Lena. The dark wood paneling and deep green accents, the gold trim and overpriced knick-knacks, may have been considered warm to some but somehow it was too much like her mother’s personality: fake and bitter. 

Lena stood in the doorway and watched her mother work in silence. As a child, she used to watch her father work for hours but she had never felt the urge to do so with her mother. So this moment was foreign to her, a rare chance to observe the woman who had pulled the puppet strings on her the majority of her life. But she dared not get caught, and resigned herself to gently knocked on the doorframe, announcing her presence after only a moment. “Mother?”

Lillian turned in her chair with a scowl on her face for whoever dared to interrupt her work. Her face softened, however, as she took in the sight of her daughter. “Lena, darling! What a wonderful surprise!” She evaluated Lena, making sure the Luthor standards were being met. Satisfied, she continued, “I didn’t know you were planning a visit.”

“I hope my visit isn’t unwelcomed.” Lena bowed her head down and fidgeted with her fingers. All of the confidence she had built up over the course of the day was quickly fading now that she stood in Lillian’s presence.

“Of course not.” There wasn’t an invitation to enter the room, and she didn’t make to approach Lena. “Let me finish this and I will meet you in the library for tea.”

Lillian rang the silver bell on her pristine desk and instantly one of the maids appeared at Lena’s side. “Yes, madam?”

“Lena and I will take tea in the library,” Lillian instructed. “Please take her through.”

Lena noted the condescending tone in Lillian’s voice, as she turned to follow the maid, Ruth, through to the library. She always used that tone with the service staff at the Luthor estate and at LuthorCorp. Lillian thought she was better than everyone else – and to some extent she was. Born to a wealthy family of the old money variety, Lillian had been raised lavishly and surrounded by servants. She later graduated top of her class from Harvard medical school and quickly rose to prominence in medical research. Marrying Lionel Luthor had only cemented her place, as well as his, at the top. Lena suspected that this was why she had treated everyone she viewed as being beneath her poorly and it was exactly how she treated the idea of Kara. 

“Thank you so much, Ruth,” Lena said softly as she walked into the library and again moments later when the tea tray was delivered. Unlike her mother, Lena always felt out of place asking the service staff to do anything for her. Eventually she had overcome her out right refusal to do so because that was ‘unbecoming of a Luthor’ according to her mother. Instead, she tried her hardest to convey her appreciation and gratitude even for the most meaningless tasks they did for her and the family. 

She paced around the library, letting her fingers graze the book spines on the shelves that lined three of the four walls of the room. When she reached the fourth wall, adorned with a large fireplace that had family pictures across its mantle, she picked up one particular frame of her late father and ran her fingers across the glass. It was one of the few pictures that captured his smile and his warmth. For posed pictures he always stood stoic and cold, the serious business man. But this picture, taken by his own personal assistant at Lena’s boarding school graduation, caught him with a wide smile across his face and pride flowing from his eyes. 

“That is my favorite picture of him.” Lillian’s voice was soft, the grief of her loss of the man they both cherished evident in the tone.

Lena cautiously watched her mother come into the room. “Mine too,” she said fondly as she placed the picture back in its spot. 

She let her mother choose a seat first and then took up one across from her. Lillian looked at the tea tray on the table between them and then at Lena expectantly. Lena tried to keep her face in check as she began to serve the tea. 

“So,” Lillian finally said after she took a sip of her tea, “you rarely come home anymore. To what do I owe this surprise visit?”

“I have something I would like to discuss with you.”  _ Dammit _ . She didn’t want to discuss anything with Lillian – she wanted to tell her. She sighed at herself for already giving Lillian a foothold in the matter. 

“Oh? What about?” Lillian delicately set her tea cup on the saucer and placed it on the end table. 

Lena took a deep breath. “Kara.”

“Kara?” Lillian sounded blank, as if she had never heard the name in her life. 

Lena felt her frustration start to get the best of her. She wanted to reach across the table and slap the smug look off her mother’s face. She hated the way her mother’s mouth formed around Kara’s name, how it came like poison, and how she blatantly ignored Kara’s existence. “Yes. Kara, my girlfriend.” 

“Oh, yes. How could I forget?” Lillian leaned back against the settee, and gracefully crossed one leg over the other. She looked cool and calm, in control, and Lena hated it. “What about her?”

“I’m going to marry her.” Lena straightened her shoulders and held her head high. 

Lillian laughed. It was hearty and deep and it cut Lena to the core. “No, you’re not. In fact, you’re going to end that nonsense once and for all.”

“I’m going to marry her, mother,” Lena repeated. “You can’t stop us from being together.”

“I can, Lena, and I will. I’ve let you parade around Boston with that trashy girl, let you soil the Luthor name with this...this affair and I’m tired of it.” She stood quickly, the calm facade evaporating, and pointed her finger at Lena’s face. “You have until graduation – two weeks. When you reach the other side of that stage you will end all of this youthful defiance and become what you are supposed to be. Do you understand me?”

Lena felt her lip tremble and hated herself for showing weakness. “How can you be so against her? You’ve never even met her.”

“And that is how I know she isn’t worthy of your time. Who is she if I haven’t heard of her?”

“Just because she doesn’t have socialite parents doesn’t mean she’s worthless!” Now Lena stood too.

“If you think for one second I am going to let you marry a wannabe journalist then you are sorely mistaken. You are about to take the reins of a multi-billion dollar company! How do you expect to keep the runnings of this business out of the media if you’re married to a journalist?” Lillian sneered sinisterly. 

This wasn’t a complete lie, albeit it wasn’t the whole truth either. Having a journalist in the family could actually be a good thing. He or she could most likely be swayed to present everything LuthorCorp did in a positive light and keep an ear out for potentially damaging press so they could head it off in time. But a journalist related to a DEO agent? Well, that was bad news all around. 

When Lex was defeated by Superman, Lillian vowed to take over Cadmus and avenge her son. She had spent the last three years pouring over his notes, investigating and plotting, trying to get Cadmus back up and running with LuthorCorp as a front. One of her first steps had been to identify the government organization that had assisted Superman in his victory over Lex. It took her nearly a year to do so but she had finally been able to identify the secret organization within the government. The DEO posited itself as an organization that protects mankind from alien threats and Lillian, at first, felt hopeful that maybe she could convince them to join forces with Cadmus despite whatever relationship they had with Superman. But she would eventually learn that their methods left something to be desired, at least in Lillian’s opinion. They were too pro-alien for her tastes, preferring to assist and assimilate these intruders to the planet rather than send them packing like they deserved. What she needed was either to gain enough power to alter the course of the DEO or wait for the opportunity when she could pit the DEO and Superman against one another. Her plan, therefore, was to identify some of the key members of the DEO and start to sway them over to Cadmus’ ideals, to use them as not only a source for information but to gain access to key weapons as well while she waited for the opportune moment to strike. But despite all of her efforts she had yet to identify a single major player within the DEO and was forced to put aside her investigation for the time being as she continued to quietly build Cadmus’s force and armory. Those plans were going to be threatened once Lena took over LuthorCorp if she did not get control over her daughter who was so blissfully unaware of her family’s business as a front to an anti-alien movement.

And then when Lena started dating one Kara Danvers, Lillian had a private investigator complete a thorough background check of the girl just as she would for any suitor that dared to date either of her children. On paper, Kara seemed a somewhat respectable match. What she lacked in prestige and familial connections she made up for in intelligence and talent. It was only when she perused the file on Kara once more, before she invited the girl over to the Luthor estate to meet her, that a picture of Kara and her older sister, Alex, made the hairs on the back of Lillian’s neck rise. She had seen Alex before, she just couldn’t place where she had seen her. To this day she didn’t know what made her pull out her old investigation files on the DEO, maybe it was intuition or sheer luck, but as she flipped through the files she landed on one particular photo of several unidentified DEO agents. Sure enough, there was Alex Danvers and she looked like she was leading the group through a briefing. Lillian held the two pictures next to one another and felt positive it was the same person. She had finally identified a major player in the DEO and that person was now too close to the Luthor family and therefore Cadmus because of Lena and Kara’s relationship.

“You are being ridiculous!” Lena shouted in frustration. “Kara would never report on anything that wasn’t on the record or–”

Lillian silenced her by raising a single hand. “Lena, be sensible for once in your life. Think about yourself, the company, and the thousands of people you will have charge of.”

“I am! I love her – she makes me happy, she makes me feel like a better person. How can that be bad for anyone? Why can’t you understand that?!”

“You’re being foolish and I won’t allow it. You are a Luthor and you will marry someone deserving of that name and of the power that it brings. You are not going to tarnish what your father has built.”

“Lex already saw to that!”

“Don’t you dare bring him into this! Your brother was manipulated. He was – is – a good man.” Lillian paused, the daggers that spilled from her eyes were enough to keep Lena silent. “I’m not going to discuss this with you further. You have no choice in the matter.”

“The hell I don’t!” Lena roared back. “I’m not going to bow or scrape to you, mother! I’m not a child anymore! I will marry Kara. I will take over LuthorCorp. And I will lead my own life without your meddling!”

“Mrs. Luthor?” Ruth had returned to the room and it must have been a sight. Her face had paled and her eyes were wide with shock. “I’m sorry to interrupt but Mr. Barnes has been calling nonstop from National City.”

Lillian’s chest was heaving as she looked at Ruth. She took a deep breath and then responded. “I’ll be right there.” 

Lena didn’t wait for the argument to continue. She knew Lillian was never going to agree to the marriage. She picked up her purse and walked past Ruth.

“Thank you, again, for the tea, Ruth,” Lena said quietly as she brushed past the trembling maid in the doorway. 

“Lena! I’m not finished yet...Lena!” Lillian bellowed. 

But Lena didn’t respond or turn back. She headed right out to the drive where the limousine that had brought her from the city was waiting. She instructed the driver to take her back to the apartment. As she slid into the back seat, she pulled out her phone and selected Kara’s contact. 

“Kara?”

“Hey! How’d it go?” Kara sounded nervous but hopeful.

Lena ignored the question and continued. “I need you to be ready in thirty minutes.”

“What do you mean ‘ready’? What’s going on?”

“We’re getting married tonight so I need you to get dressed and be out front when I pull up.”

“We’re what?! Lena...I don’t understand. What did Lillian say?”

“She said no, of course.” She pulled her phone from her ear and put Kara on speaker as she began to search through her contacts to find someone who could marry them that night. Being a Luthor may be frustrating the majority of the time but it had its perks. She knew that she could convince anyone to marry them no matter the hour by simply dropping her name which naturally came with the promise of a monetary payoff. “We’re going to get married tonight before she can do anything about it.”

“Lena, are you sure about this? Like really sure? What is she going to do when she finds out?”

“I told you, I’m always sure about us. It won’t matter after the fact. She doesn’t have the gall to say or do anything once we’re married, not publicly at least. When I turn twenty-five next year then I’ll have complete control of the company and she’ll lose all power over me. I promise we’ll do something more ceremonial with your parents and sister soon. I just…” she paused, remembering the arrogance of her mother’s demands, “I don’t want to give her time to retaliate about what happened tonight.”

Kara whistled her amazement of the situation as she tried to process it all. But they had talked this over enough, they had diligently planned their future knowing that Lillian could throw a wrench in at any moment. And she trusted Lena’s judgment – if she thought this was the right way to go about it then she would go along with it. “Alright. Okay. I’ll be ready, I promise.” She let out a nervous laugh as the full realization of what they were about to do hit her. “You’re about to be my wife.”

Lena smiled. “It’s just a piece of paper, Kara. An important one, especially if we are to keep my mother at bay, but still just a piece of paper. I’ve always been, and will always be, yours.”

“I love you, Lena. I’ll see you in thirty.”

“And I love you.”


	2. Chapter 2

Kara paced the sidewalk in front of the apartment. She still couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that had been sending tingles down her spine ever since they arrived in Metropolis. She had been sure Lillian would say no to their engagement and so she was not surprised by that outcome. But she was surprised by Lena’s response. She had never imagined that Lena would insist on them getting married without Lillian’s permission. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had always thought Lillian would eventually come around. Perhaps not like her or be completely on board with their relationship, but nevertheless let them be. Was that what this tingling was – an inherent disappointment that Lillian would not come their side?

She sighed in disappointment as she leaned against the stone siding of the building, racking her brain for the hundredth time for an answer as to why Lillian despised their match so much. Every time she did this, though, she always circled back to her social standing, or lack thereof, and she couldn’t do much to change that for herself. She rolled her neck and shoulders trying to overcome another wave of cold worry that swept her body. Whatever this feeling was it made her want to flee. She wanted to grab Lena and get out of Metropolis, lock themselves in their apartment in Boston and never leave.

“Hey you. Want to get married?”

She looked up to find Lena peering at her out of a limousine, her chin resting on her folded arms in the open window like she had been sitting there watching her for sometime. Kara pushed herself off the side of the building and slowly approached the vehicle.

“Hello, beautiful.” She let her fingers trace the side of Lena’s face and smiled as Lena closed her eyes and savored the touch. “Do I look okay? I don’t have a lot of clothes here yet…”

“I would marry you even if you were in sweats,” Lena promised. She opened her eyes and let them sweep Kara’s entire form, a devilish smile growing on her face. Opening the door, she slid to the other side of the seat giving Kara space to get in.

As soon as they were settled, Lena instructed the driver to take them to LuthorCorp. She burrowed herself into Kara’s side, linking their fingers together as the limousine pulled away from the curb.

“Why are we going to LuthorCorp?”

“We have to pick up Peter,” Lena said matter-of-factly.

Kara waited for some elaboration but got none so she continued her questioning. “Who is Peter?”

“Peter is the lawyer who has been handling my side of the business and estate ever since my father died. My trust, executing my father’s will, helping keep everything afloat at LuthorCorp, all of that. He has the paperwork for you and I to sign before we make this,” she motioned her finger back and forth between them, “official.”

“Oh. What kind of paperwork?”

“The type that comes with marrying a Luthor.” Lena smiled sympathetically. She knew that it was going to take a bit of adjustment for Kara to settle into their new life. Being Kara Luthor would come with most of the world bending over backwards at her every whim, doors at every turn would open for her not based on merit but on merely a name and implied bank account. Even Lena struggled with this sort of notoriety and she had been raised in that nonsense. She had thought that Lex’s war on the aliens would have stopped her family’s influence but it seemed that not so many people disagreed with Lex’s anti-alien agenda – just how he went about it.

The few blocks to LuthorCorp took no time at all and they arrived to find Peter waiting at the curb. He did not hesitate to pull the door open and join them, kissing Lena’s cheek as he maneuvered himself around her inside the limousine.

“Hey Lena.” He moved to the seat across from them. “Hi, you must be Kara?” He held out his hand which Kara took into her own. “So, sneak attack wedding, eh? Your mother is going to riot when she finds out you did this.”

Peter Tannenbaum was a very astute man and lawyer. At fifty-three years old, he had spent his entire career moving through the ranks at LuthorCorp after being personally hired by Lionel right out of law school, back when the company was still considered a small start-up. He was dedicated not only to the business but to the Luthor family as well, and he had a great deal of pride in what they had all built. He was happy for the role he had played and continued to play as he served both business and family.

There had been rough spots, of course. He and Lillian had never seen eye-to-eye which had caused complications at times over the years. They both moved around LuthorCorp as if the other didn’t exist. It was a simple relationship: he didn’t like her and she didn’t like him and that was that. Then, he had nearly quit during Lex’s reign which had brought the company to its knees. It had almost killed him to watch Lex, who was like a son to him, destroy everything that his father – that they – had done over the last thirty years, and then to watch Lillian rule over the company like warlord in the aftermath.

But he had never abandoned his post, he owed that much to Lionel. They had had a close friendship both in and outside of LuthorCorp and he felt an intense loyalty to the man he had considered a brother. And he also had the highest hopes for Lena. She was smarter, more driven, and would be a better leader than Lex and Lillian, and he knew that she was the solution to LuthorCorp’s recent struggles. And just like Lionel, he had a soft spot for her, considering her more of a daughter than an heiress to the kingdom. He would do anything to ensure her personal well-being and that of the company she was about to inherit, even if that meant taking the wrath of Lillian.  

Lena chuckled. “I know. She’s somewhat forewarned – I went to ask her permission tonight which, of course, didn’t go well. I don’t think she believes I will do this after she told me no, though.”

Peter smiled and shook his head as he opened his briefcase and started to pull out a large stack of folders, each stuffed with legal documents. “I’m just glad you employ me and not her. She’d fire me and then probably have me killed.”

“I won’t let her touch you,” Lena said reassuringly. “If she gives you any grief once this all comes to light you just let me know. But, I have been thinking…” She pulled a few of the file folders that Peter had set out on the seat next to him towards her. “My birthday is less than a year away and when I turn twenty-five I will have control over LuthorCorp, correct?”

Peter nodded his head, “Technically you have full control over LuthorCorp right now, but yes upon your birthday it will be official. Your father left his controlling shares of LuthorCorp to you and only you when Lex started to…” He waved his hand, trying to find the words to politely describe Lex’s attempted genocide of the alien population of Metropolis. Not able to find any, he moved on. “You were elected to the position of president once Lex was out of the picture and you will be elected to CEO on your birthday per your father’s request. Those two positions, with your father’s shares,” he continued, “plus your own shares, you alone have the majority of the business – more so than your father ever did. Your mother has the next highest amount of shares but she is still a minority member on the board compared to you.”

Lena sat back in her seat with a soft snarl on her face. “Is there any chance that the board won’t elect me as CEO on my birthday?”

Peter adjusted in his seat before casting his eyes down to the files in Lena’s hands and then to Kara. Lena took the hint and opened several of the files until she found the one she was searching for out of the stack.

“Darling, I need you to sign on each line that is tabbed please,” she instructed as she turned to Kara and held out the file.

“What are these?” Kara flipped through the document of almost fifty pages.

“Non-disclosure papers about LuthorCorp,” Lena replied simply. Then she started to list off the other files as she stacked them in Kara’s lap. “This file is the prenuptial agreement, this one is to add you to all property deeds of mine, this one will add you to my bank accounts – were you able to set her up her own account as well?”

Peter nodded. “It is all taken care of, just like you asked. All she has to do is sign. We’ll file it all with your marriage certificate and then,” He clapped his hands together and turned both palms up and down like a Blackjack dealer at the end of his shift. He then leaned forward, pulling a pen from his inner jacket pocket, and handed it to Kara.

“This is all a bit overwhelming…” Kara remarked as she thumbed through the stacks. “How did you get all of this done so quickly?”

Lena placed a kiss on her cheek. “We’ve been talking about all of this for months. Did you really think that _I_ wouldn’t be prepared?”

Kara laughed at Lena’s emphasis. Of course Lena had started preparing for their future life together. That was just who she was. Kara felt silly for being surprised that Lena had already turned their Saturday morning dreams of the future into legal documentation.

As she began to sign, Peter felt comfortable enough to continue. “I don’t think the board will not elect you,” he said, responding to Lena’s previous question. “The board was loyal to your father and he made it very clear that you were to succeed him. Again, technically there is always a chance – it is the board’s right to elect a CEO of their choosing. But, I think it is very unlikely they’d choose anyone other than you. And it is even more unlikely that you’d lose both positions as president and CEO anyhow.”

“Well, that is what I’ve been thinking about,” Lena stated. “There is a chance, however small, that they do not and I would expect that if they chose not to it would be at my mother’s urging, correct?”

As temporary vice president of LuthorCorp, Lillian had enough power to keep the business running, along with the board, until Lena’s twenty-fifth birthday. Although every major decision required Lena to be present for a vote as president, the day-to-day runnings had been left to her mother and the COO, a man by the name of Viktor Brandt. Lena suspected that her mother had grown too accustomed to what power she had gathered since Lionel’s death and Lex’s imprisonment and that she would not give it up lightly.

“Your mother has made too many enemies. Before your father’s death and afterward. I don’t think she could get a voting majority together to do that,” Peter replied. “Plus, the projects that she has been pushing have a pretty high burn rate. If she keeps this up, we’re going to have to look for additional investors or other sources of income – both are not something the board is happy about.”

“Jesus, what kind of shit show am I going to be coming into?” Lena rolled her eyes. Her mother may very well destroy LuthorCorp before her birthday. “Why wasn’t I told about any of this?”

“The next meeting is where your mother can put these new projects forth for a vote and that isn’t for another month. There is nothing for you to do about it in the meantime. Enjoy your graduation, and now your marriage. LuthorCorp and its problems will be there on the other side, trust me.”

“How much? Just tell me that at least. How much money is my mother burning through?” Lena crossed her legs and looked across the vehicle at him, the intense future CEO within her coming out. When he hesitated too long she prodded him. “Peter? Tell me.”

He sighed and then mumbled a figure that Lena was sure could not be correct.

“What was that, Peter?”

“Close to a billion,” he muttered.

Lena raised her eyebrow in irritation but said nothing more. They fell silent at this. The only sound now was Kara’s scribble of a signature every so often as she turned through page after page of the documents in her lap. Finally, Kara signed at the last tab and closed the file folder, adding it to the pile of others she had already finished. Peter smiled at her as he packed them away in his briefcase. Lena, too, smiled at her and kissed her cheek once more.

The driver rolled down the partition between himself and the back. “Ms. Luthor, we are five minutes–”

His voice was lost to a new cacophony of noises. The limousine was violently upturned. There was a shattering of glass and a sickening crunch of metal. The door closest to Kara broke open and, as the limousine did a somersault, she was thrown from the vehicle. She hit the pavement hard, face down, leaving a crater where she landed. She wasn’t hurt but it took her a second to regain her breath and her senses. She pushed herself up onto her knees and noticed the street was covered in a blanket of glass shards, too much to be just from the limousine windows. As she looked up to the buildings around her, a deafening roar of massive engines came overhead.

Attempting to land in the park at the corner of the intersection was a sleek, onyx ship. It was half a block long and several stories tall. On the ship’s belly was a circular opening that resembled the core of a nuclear reactor that was glowing a violent purple.

She made it to her feet and noticed that the purple light grew darker and stronger. As it did so, it felt like all of the air in the vicinity was being sucked up. Then, a loud boom echoed through downtown Metropolis as an energy burst shot from the ship’s core. Everything within a mile radius was haphazardly thrown further from the intersection. Cars flipped and what glass was left on the surrounding buildings rained down on the street. The street signs and traffic lights all bowed in the force of the wind. Kara had to dig her hands and feet deep into the concrete to prevent from being thrown back herself.

Once the wind subsided, the sounds of the ship’s engines echoed through the intersection. She dashed to where the limousine had landed. It had flipped once again in the force of the new wave of wind but luckily had landed right side-up. It was smashed considerably, the entire roof was buckled down at least a foot and the trunk section had been completely ripped off.

“Lena!”

Kara tore the passenger-side back door off its hinges in her panic. She found Peter crumpled on the floor board just inside. He was gasping and groaning, reaching down to his left leg which was bent at an awkward angle. Through the rip in the leg of his pants she could see bone protruding from the bloody gash on his leg. She slid her arms underneath his armpits and dragged him out of the vehicle as best as she could without hurting his leg further.

The intersection started to fill with the purple glow again, a sign that another energy burst was to come. Kara hesitated. Peter wouldn’t be able to handle the blast outside of the limousine but she also needed to make sure the limousine didn’t flip again with Lena and the driver still inside. She bent down and picked him up, trying to be as gentle as possible as she maneuvered him over her shoulder. She looked around and spotted a staircase that lead to a sublevel apartment. Peter was gasping again in pain and she tried her best to get him down the stairs without jostling his leg. She laid him down in the stairwell gently, cushioning him on two trash bags at the bottom of the stairs. He had passed out during the move, most likely from the pain, but seemed to be fine enough to be left alone for the time being.

The next boom came quicker than she had anticipated. As she reached the top of the stairs the limousine was already being pushed back. The force of the shock wave started to lift the front of the vehicle, threatening to flip it over onto its top. Kara rushed to the vehicle, exerting more effort to do so than she ever had to before in her human life. She knew if she did not have her powers she would have never made it to the limousine before it was tossed. Her powers also allowed her to dig her fingers into the vehicle’s metal siding and hold it down as the violent wind swept passed. As the shock wave died down, she crawled through one of the broken windows to the back of limousine. She found Lena curled in the seat closest to the driver.

She wasn’t moving.

Kara ran a hand over Lena’s form trying to assess for possible injuries. She could hear her heartbeat, though it was weak, and she could feel Lena breathing. When she pushed back the long black hair from Lena’s face, she found a stream of blood flowing from her hairline down her face and neck. Deciding that she could risk moving her, Kara positioned Lena in her arms, her legs thrown over one arm and her back braced by the other, and climbed out of the limousine. She rushed to the stairwell that she had put Peter in and laid Lena right next to him.

Kara made her way back once more to the vehicle for the driver. It was then that she noticed the silence that filled the entire downtown area. She looked to the intersection and noticed the ship had finally landed in the park. Several dozen figures, clad in dark metal armor, were streaming from a docking bay at its rear. Much to her dismay, a group of them were headed right for the limousine. She quickly wrenched open the driver side door. The driver was unconscious, but alive. She pulled at his seat belt but it was jammed, trapping him in place. Before she could tear it from the driver’s unconscious form, a noise behind her made her spin around. She took the brunt force of a metal club to the face and fell to her knees with a groan.  

The figure before her yelled something. It was in a different language but it seemed so familiar to her. If she just had her wits about her she was sure she could place it. The figure went to strike her again but this time she saw it coming. She ripped the driver-side door off the limousine and used it as a shield. It buckled under the force of the hit, the club making an indention all the way through the door. With all of her might, she threw the door back at the assailant. This took the figure by surprise and she heard him grunt in pain as the door slammed him back into the building behind them.

Not even having a second to stand, another heavily armored figure ran up on the limousine. This one had a long gun with a wide muzzle. He fired a warning shot into the concrete of the sidewalk as he began to yell in the strange language. Much like a shotgun, several bullets spewed out of the muzzle, bright orange pelts that sounded like marbles as they bounced off the pavement. One of the bullets ricocheted at just the right angle off the sidewalk and then the side of the limousine, and grazed her forehead. She hissed in pain as a burning sensation spread from the wound.

This second figure cocked the gun again and pointed it right at her, demanding something of her in the language she still couldn’t quite place. She put her hands up in surrender but this seemed to only agitate the figure. He jabbed the gun against her shoulder and yelled once more. Without a chance to react, the sound of thunder echoed from the clouds above and a red and blue figure slammed down on the figure with enough force to crack the sidewalk several feet in all directions.

Superman turned and looked at her in surprise. “Kara? What are you doing here?”

“I was here with Lena...we were...we were…” She stopped her explanation as he took her face in his hands and examined her wound. He was there, really there in front of her. She was too enamoured with his presence to care about what he was doing. But then she hissed in pain as his finger passed over the spot where the bullet had grazed her forehead. He looked in shock as he brought his hand down and before she could ask him why, she noticed the blood on his fingers. Her blood. She had never bled before on Earth.

He looked around for the gun, finding it two feet away from the now still figure.

“Is this what did this to you?” he asked.

“Yes, but Kal–”

Jets of orange light flew past them and they both ducked for cover. They could hear bullets ping off the limousine and the building next to them. The group of invaders that had started down the street were coming at them faster, their front ranks already taking aim again.

“Get Lena and get out of here right now! The Metropolis division of the DEO is en route.” He handed the gun to Kara and pointed in the opposite direction of the invaders. “Give this to them but don’t let them know that you know they are the DEO, alright? And no more using your superpowers.”

Not leaving her any time to respond, he sped toward the oncoming army coming down the street.

Kara heard the rumble of several vehicles and looked in the direction where he had pointed. A convoy of military jeeps were speeding towards the alien ship. She waved her hands over her head, trying desperately to get their attention but most of them kept on down the street, filled with soldiers who were clad with armor and weapons. Finally, one of the rear jeeps stopped and its commanding officer leaned out the window.

“I have three seriously wounded people who need to get off the streets now,” Kara panted at him. “And Superman told me to give this to you.” She held out the gun and let him pull it through the window.  

The commander shouted orders into the back of the jeep. Two medics jumped out the rear door and followed Kara to the stairwell where she had stowed Lena and Peter. Another pair of medics from a second jeep that had also stopped ran to where she pointed at the limousine. Within minutes, two ambulances joined the jeeps bringing stretchers and even more assistance. Kara joined Lena’s side when they carried her unconscious form up from the stairwell. She took her hand as they wheeled her to the ambulance and then helped them load her stretcher into the back.

“Can I ride with her?” She already had a foot up into the back of the ambulance and was ready to climb in.

“You better. I need to take a look at your head,” the EMT said, narrowing her eyes at Kara’s wound.

Kara pushed herself up into the back and pulled the doors shut. As the ambulance turned around and left the scene, she looked out the back windows and watched as the military forces moved toward the ship. In the distance she saw Superman pummel several invaders into the ground. For the first time since Kal had left her with the Danvers she felt a desire to fight, to protect, her mother’s old mission pulling at her from the depths where she had buried it. But she also felt ashamed she hadn’t been able to protect Lena. As she looked back to Lena while the EMTs assessed her she vowed to do better not only for herself but for Lena as well.

************************************************************************************

Lillian Luthor sat in the corner of the private hospital room with a weary look on her face. It had been six days since the attack on Metropolis. Upon learning of Lena’s injuries she had used the Luthor name to bully her way into the middle of the city to get to Metropolis General Hospital. She was not about to let anyone, let alone the U.S. military, keep her from her daughter. Six days of sitting in the hospital, first in the ICU and now in this private room. Her eyes had rarely left Lena’s face during that time. It was still so painfully pale though much better than the night of the attack.

She sighed deeply. Her husband was gone. Her son, her precious boy, was locked up. Now her daughter was in and out of consciousness. And it was all because of aliens. She swallowed down the bile that was building in her throat and told herself not to let her mind go there. The rage she felt had already been too consuming before this and now it threatened to explode from her.

A nurse entered the room and began to evaluate Lena. Lillian watched her intensely, making sure she did her job correctly. She had insisted and then demanded that only the best of the hospital’s staff be allowed to interact with Lena. She threatened to fly in doctors and nurses from across the globe if her demands were not met. And of course she required a private room for Lena – the only thing she had budged on as she originally had demanded an entire private corridor. The nurse quickly finished and left with a small smile, probably thrilled that she did not receive a verbal lashing during her evaluation as so many of them had incurred over the last few days.

Lena had been in a brief coma after the incident but was slowly recovering. Within two days she had started to open her eyes and follow directions to squeeze the doctor and nurses’ hands. On the third, when they moved her from the ICU, she had opened her eyes and softly asked for Lionel. Before Lillian could respond, Lena’s eyes had closed and she lost consciousness again. The doctors had taken this as a good sign and hoped she would regain more of her proper memory as she healed. Then, just yesterday, Lena had woken up for nearly an hour. She could not tell them where she was and had no recollection of the accident but she now remembered that Lionel was gone and Lex was in jail. She had teared up and started to fret with why she didn’t know simple things. Lillian sat on the edge of her bed and smoothed Lena’s dark hair down, telling her it was alright and to not be scared that she couldn’t remember these things just yet. Then, to Lillian’s dismay as Lena closed her eyes and started to drift off yet again, Lena asked for Kara.

And it was the Danvers girl who was on Lillian’s mind now as she watched Lena sleep the morning away. She had been successful at keeping the girl away though it had eventually required security to do so. She had to give it to the girl – she was annoyingly persistent. To her knowledge, Kara hadn’t left the hospital and had been sleeping in the waiting room down the hall. She had taken to begging every nurse and doctor for updates on Lena but Lillian had quickly put a stop to that when she learned of this trend.

She knew that Lena would eventually be well enough to demand that Kara be present and that if she was going to stop this affair it would have to be soon. She had spent the last two days formulating her plan. To be honest, she had been formulating ways to get Kara out of Lena’s life since the two had started their relationship and then even more so when she learned of the connection to the DEO Kara held. At first she had decided to let the relationship run its course, convinced that it wouldn’t last. But she now knew that with Kara’s relation to the DEO and Lena’s announcement that they wanted to marry that she had missed her opportunity there. She also suspected that the possibility of paying Kara off was out of the picture as well. No, it was going to take something drastic to get Kara out of Lena’s life. And, Lillian thought smugly, she might just have the leverage she needed to pull it off.

With one last look at Lena, she let herself out of the private room and past the security guards that she had requested be stationed in the hallway. The wing was quiet despite it being the morning visiting hours. She slowly made her way down the hall, confidence building with each step, past the nurses’ station and to the waiting room where she found Kara curled in a chair and staring out the window. The girl looked so small, so harmless. And for a fleeting second all of that confidence, that arrogance, vanished. It almost made her leave and abandon her plan.

The girl must have sensed her presence because she suddenly turned to face her and then quickly jumped from her chair when she realized who she was.

“Is Lena okay?”

Lillian studied her face, noting the bandage still on her forehead. It was unfair that they had all been minorly injured while Lena had taken the worst of it. Tannenbaum had already had surgery on his leg. He was going to be in a cast for a bit and would require a great deal of physical therapy but overall he was fine. The driver was also still in the hospital and had several injuries but all were minor and he was expected to make a full recovery. And here was the Danvers girl, a simple bandage to her head. The injustice of it all was nearly too much and that provided the needed fuel to the fire that had started to fade within her at the sight of Kara.

“Sit down, Miss Danvers.”

Kara did as she was told not wanting to argue with the one person who could get her back to Lena. “Please tell me that she’s okay, Ms. Luthor.” She could barely contain the sob of worry.

“Lena is recovering. She was awake briefly yesterday. The doctors are positive she’ll make a full recovery but only time will tell if there will be any lingering damage.” Her voice was monotone, as if she was talking about someone other than her daughter.

“Has she asked for me?”

Lillian hesitated. “No. She has only asked for me when she’s been conscious.”

The girl’s shoulders slumped and her head lowered. “Can I please see her? Just for a minute?”

“I don’t think so. Not now, not ever. I want you out of her life.”

“Why? We love each other and I–”

“Stop.” Lillian was disgusted with the sight of Kara pleading. “You will no longer be in her life.”

Kara picked up her head and stared in disbelief at the Luthor matriarch. “You can’t make me stay away from her.”

“I don’t have to make you stay away from her. You are going to do that all on your own.”

“And why would I do that?” The words were harsher than intended.

Lillian snickered maliciously. The girl was not only persistent but also had a quiet fierceness about her. It was such a shame. She might have been a worthy suitor had it not been for her family. “I’ll make you a deal, Miss Danvers. Ask your sister to join us within the hour and I’ll let you see Lena one last time for a few moments.”

“My sister? Why do you want to see my sister?” But Kara was already pulling out her phone. She’d do anything at this point to see Lena.

“Get your sister here and we’ll talk.”

************************************************************************************

Alex arrived twenty minutes later, looking harassed and confused. She had been working almost non-stop on the alien attack in Metropolis, having flown in with a platoon of DEO agents form the National City branch, and was helping to coordinate the DEO forces with the U. S. military as new cities were attacked every other day. At this point, it seemed whatever alien species was invading was really only sending scouting parties. They had descended upon two other U. S. cities and had started to land elsewhere in the world. It was mass chaos and she had no time to waste. She irritably entered the waiting room, pulling at her ill-fitting civilian clothes and ready to interrogate Kara on the urgency of her needed presence. The sight of Lillian Luthor sitting in the room was enough to make her take pause.

“Kara, what’s going on?” Alex glanced at Lillian before meeting Kara’s eyes.

“I don’t–”

“Ah, Agent Danvers,” Lillian greeted her. “I’m so glad you could tear yourself away from what I’m sure is a very busy time for the DEO.”

Alex’s blood ran cold. She could tell by the widening of Kara’s eyes at Lillian’s comment that she too was surprised of what had just been said. But Kara reiterated what her eyes were conveying.

“Alex, I swear I didn’t…” She shook her head.

“It’s okay, Kara.” Alex sat herself in the seat across from Lillian and addressed her question at the older woman. “What do you want?”

“A compromise, a deal between myself and the DEO.”

“How do you know that I work for the DEO?”

“You know who my son is. Well, was. I know quite a bit about your organization. I also know a lot about alien invaders that come in black ships,” she pointed up to the television screen which was broadcasting a new attack occurring in London, “and secret identities of red-caped menaces,” she snarled.

Alex swallowed hard. Something about Lillian’s demeanor, her arrogance, told her to believe that Lillian in fact did know more than she should. She cleared her throat and proceeded with caution. “I don’t have authorization to negotiate on behalf of the organization.”

“Oh, I think you do. In fact, I think you have a substantial amount of clout with your position.” Lillian uncrossed her legs and then crossed them in the opposite direction in a show of comfortable power. “But perhaps you and the DEO have things under control. I’m sure an organization like yours knows exactly who is attacking cities around the world and how to defeat them.”

Alex bit her lip. They, in fact, did not know who they were dealing with and were scrambling to work with militaries all over the world to organize some sort of defence. “I’m listening.”

Lillian smiled smartly. “I know exactly what species of aliens are attacking Earth as well as crucial information about them that should help formulate a plan to defeat them should they come in full force. And they will, by the way. At least according to Lex’s files.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“It’s very simple, Agent Danvers. I want your sister out of Lena’s life.”

“That’s it?”

Kara whipped her head up at Alex’s response, anger coloring her cheeks.

“That’s it,” Lillian confirmed. “Pretty agreeable terms, don’t you think?”

Alex pulled out her phone and started to dial. “I’ll need to run this by the director. There will be paperwork of course.”

Lillian gave a sickly sweet smile. “But of course.”

“Alex, no!” Kara jumped from her seat

But Alex put her hand up as her call was answered on the other side. “I need a secure line to the director, please.”

She left Lillian and Kara in the room.

Kara rounded on Lillian. “Why are you doing this? You would keep information from the authorities that could save hundreds of lives, thousands of lives, all because of Lena and I’s relationship?”

Lillian looked up at her from her seat as if Kara was a bug, a disgusting insect that needed to be terminated. “You don’t deserve her. I will not allow my last child to lose her sense of direction or ruin what her father and I have built over,” she looked Kara up and down again, “someone like you. If you take my little deal, then you’re out of Lena’s life and the alien attacks will stop. If you don’t, then the attacks will continue. The more aliens that attack the world the better my position is, really. People will realize that Lex was right and that aliens are our common enemy, the only enemy. It’s really a win-win for me either way.”

“How can you live knowing that people are dying?” Kara was sickened by the thought of how many innocent lives would be lost, of how many had already been lost.

“The question is, how can you?”

Alex re-entered the room and watched the two square off against one another. “The director is on his way. You’ll need to have the information for him immediately.”

“I do, don’t worry about that,” Lillian snarked.

“How many people, Alex?” Kara asked softly. She had not been paying attention to the news, too worried about Lena to really think of anything else. “How many people have died so far?”

Alex was hesitant but conceded the answer. “Almost eight hundred in Metropolis. Twelve hundred in Houston. Six hundred and change in Chicago. And,” she sighed, “we were getting reports that a ship had landed in London as I was leaving to come here.”

Kara looked up to the television of the London attack in confirmation and then turned back to Lillian. “If I agree to this then you’ll give the DEO the necessary information to stop the attacks? And if I don’t agree, then you’ll let Lena and I be?”

“At the expense of innocent lives, but yes. I’d let you and Lena continue whatever this is that you think you have. You two were on your way to get married, were you not? I can’t imagine any other reason Peter would have been with you in that car if that wasn’t the fact. I obviously cannot stop you two from having a relationship if that is the path you should choose.”

“Lena will never agree to this even if I do. When she wakes up she’ll come back to me no matter what deal I made with you.”

“No she won’t. Because if you take the deal, Kara, you will no longer exist.”

“Woah, wait a second! This was not part of the deal!” Alex cried out.

“It is now,” Lillian sharply retorted. “An essential part, I’d say. It’s tragic that so many people have lost their lives in these attacks. A shame that Kara Danvers was among them.” Lillian turned to Kara and continued. “If you want this deal, Kara, you’ll agree to all of it.”

“Kara, the DEO can’t force you to do this.” Alex shook her head. “We’ll eventually find a way to stop the attacks.”

“But how many people will die in the meantime, Alex? We can’t let people keep dying.” Kara sat back down and put her hands in her head. She knew what she had to do. She knew what was right. “I’ll do it. But I get to see Lena one last time. You said I could have that.” She raised her head and looked Lillian square in the eyes, daring her to take away that last bit of Lena.

Lillian smiled victoriously. “I did and you shall. You have three minutes.” She glanced down at the gold watch on her wrist expectantly.

Kara took the hint and ran out of the waiting room. She was held up briefly by the security guards who only let her pass when Lillian had stepped into the hallway and ordered them to do so.  

She entered Lena’s room quietly and stood in the doorway, watching Lena sleep. She looked so peaceful, like she was back in their bed in Boston. Kara pulled a chair close to the bed and took one of Lena’s hands into her own.

“I love you, Lena. I love you so much.” She could not help the tears now that Lena was there in front of her. She placed kisses all over the back of her hand. She breathed in the scent of Lena’s skin, willing her senses to commit it to memory. “I’m sorry but I have to do this. I’m so sorry.”

“Kara? We have to go.”

She looked over her shoulder to find Alex and Lillian standing in the doorway. Three minutes was too short compared to the lifetime they had planned. She looked back at Lena and lovingly tucked some of the dark strands behind her ear. At last, she stood and placed a final kiss on her forehead.

“I love you. I’ll always wait for you,” she whispered as quietly as possible not wanting Alex or Lillian to hear her. “Find me, Lena. Please just find me.”

She felt Alex take her hand and pull her from the room. It was like she was in a dreamworld. She was numb but at the same time felt overstimulated like her first days on Earth. She looked back once more at Lena trying to memorize the slope of her nose and the shade of her hair. She had spent hours watching Lena sleep so she _knew_ Lena, yet her brain screamed in protest with each step Alex forced her to take because it wasn’t enough. She needed more time, just five more minutes of study so she would never forget her face.

“All of the information you need, Agent Danvers.” Lillian held out an information drive. “Have your director bring up any necessary paperwork. And, Agent Danvers? I expect all of you to keep up your end of the bargain. That includes you too. Stay away from my daughter.”

Kara finally let her eyes leave Lena and brought them to Lillian. There was so much she wanted to say but her voice was lost in her throat.

And as if she sensed Kara’s thoughts and her inability to speak, Lillian snickered. “Enjoy your new life, Kara.”

************************************************************************************

“Mom?”

Lillian turned from her place at the window at the sound of Lena’s voice. It had been two hours since her deal with the DEO and Kara, and already she was feeling the satisfaction at the pieces of her elaborate plan falling into place. But as she turned now and saw Lena’s face she felt a small twinge of guilt at what she had left to do.

“Lena, darling, how are you feeling today?” It had been just over twenty-four hours since the last time she was conscious but already she was looking better today.

Lena swallowed hard and then coughed. She tried to sit up slightly in the bed but was too weak to even move her arms the way she needed to in order to prop herself up. Resigned, she let herself rest back into the bed and closed her eyes from the exhaustion that swept over her because of her movements.

Lillian thought for a second that Lena must have slipped back into her slumber when she had stilled so suddenly. But then she watched as Lena’s eyebrows furrowed and she licked her lips.

“Where’s Kara?” She coughed again, her voice dry and raspy.

“Let me get you some ice chips and call the doctor now that you’re awake.” Lillian left the room and returned quickly. She sat on the edge of the bed and helped Lena slip one of the ice chips into her mouth. Lena savored it and asked for another.

The doctor was quick to join them and started his check-up. This time Lena answered all of his questions correctly. She knew who she was, the year, the president, and knew she had been in Metropolis prior to her injury and therefore could posit that she was still in Metropolis. He explained to her the extent of her injuries and how she should proceed with caution as she begun to heal. He smiled down at her as he wrapped up and promised he would be back in two hours to check on her if she was still awake.

Lillian placed the cup of ice chips on the tray next to Lena’s bed and evaluated her daughter. Lena’s eyes had fully opened as she spoke with the doctor and she looked more awake now than she had since sustaining her injury.

“Mother, where’s Kara?” She asked again after the doctor left the room.

Lillian looked to the window. She felt like a coward that she could not even look Lena in the face because of what she was about to do. “What do you remember about how you got your injury?”

Lena shook her head slightly and took a deep breath. “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes and searched her brain for the answers. “I remember you and I argued about Kara and then I was in a car.” She broke off trying to make her brain remember more details but it was giving her a headache the harder she implored the memories to come to the surface. “I remember Peter was there and I think he was screaming and there was blood. There was glass everywhere and...and...I remember I couldn’t find Kara.” Tears started to fall down her cheeks. “Mom, where is she?”

“You weren’t in a car accident, Lena. Not a generic one, at least. An alien ship attacked Metropolis that night. The limousine was right in the middle of it.”

“Where is she?” Lena’s voice was shaky as she asked again. The tears were falling quick now because she could see the answer on her mother’s face, hear it in the avoidance of her repeated question.

“I’m sorry, Lena. But she did not survive the attack.”

“Oh, God...It’s my fault. It’s my fault we were there…” Lena turned her head from her mother, not wanting her to see her cry. She buried her face into her pillow and cried like a child. The only sounds apart from her sobs was her raspy voice saying Kara’s name over and over.

She carried on like that for quite some time but the cries eventually stopped, her already weakened body not able to keep up with the grief she felt. Lillian rubbed her shoulders and held her hand throughout the ordeal but could not bring herself to watch Lena’s breakdown. When the last of Lena’s sobs had died down, Lillian turned from the window and was startled at what she found. There was something in Lena’s face and in her eyes that Lillian had only ever seen once before, when the authorities had dragged Lex from their home. It was a resigned darkness, a death of sorts, that peered back at her as if pieces of Lena’s soul had died each time she had murmured the girl’s name into the pillow. Lillian swallowed hard, the guilt boiling up into her throat, at the realization that she had not only ended Kara Danvers’ life but also the life of her daughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the awesome comments here and on tumblr about this story! I really am excited to explore not only this plot but also a different version of Kara and Lena. I'm also in love with writing Lillian Luthor. I thank Brenda Strong for giving us such a wonderful and dynamic character.
> 
> And just for the record after SDCC, I, for one, will continue to write Supercorp fics. I stopped writing for several years because of a show where one of the actors crapped on the ship and I hated losing one of my deepest passions. Katie McGrath is why I started writing again and for her I will continue to write. Supercorp is ours and ours alone so let's keep cranking out the awesome fics, art, videos, etc... and support Katie <3
> 
> I also loved Odette and like the possible dynamic of Lena x Reign and even a possible Alex x Reign. So I may write a bit of her soon!
> 
> As always, I read and edit these mostly by myself. So all errors are my own. Shout out to my awesome write-or-die sten06 (@stennnn06) for reading through the chapter beforehand and mssirey (@mssirey) for looking over this fic's entire outline and providing much needed encouragement. 
> 
> Come yell at me on tumblr @nevertobeships!


	3. Chapter 3

“You look good with blonde hair.”

Kara rolled her eyes at her older sister as Alex’s face appeared over her shoulder in the mirror’s reflection. She didn’t recognize the person in the mirror. And it wasn’t just the hair. The new scar above her left eyebrow had already scabbed over and was nearly healed but felt like a beacon on her head. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin looked sickly. This change of hair color just seemed to emphasize these flaws. She pushed her fingers through the freshly blown-dry hair trying to come to terms with this new change. “I want my old color back.”

The hairstylist’s face dropped. She had been sweeping up the snippets of Kara’s trim and admiring the two sisters; it made her miss her own sister.

Alex tried to give a reassuring smile to the offended woman as she jabbed her finger into Kara’s side. “It looks good. I’m _so_ glad you decided to go with this color,” she said a little louder, her eyes dancing to the side where the the hairstylist was standing.

Kara took the hint and plastered a fake smile on her face. She had been doing that a lot today. First the DEO’s debriefing so she could be released into Alex’s custody for the day and then when they went to buy her some new clothes. It was exhausting. “You’re right. I just need to get used to it.”

There had been too many changes in the last two weeks. She wanted Lena. Rao, she didn’t even know if Lena was okay. Had she woken up? Where was she now? How had she taken the news about Kara? This last question was what had kept her up every night since her deal with Lillian. She wanted to know the answer but didn’t at the same time. She herself was having trouble dealing with the loss of Kara Danvers and couldn’t even imagine how Lena was taking it.

All she did of late was question her decision and pray. She had prayed more in the last two weeks than she had in her entire life. Prayed that Lena would move on. Prayed that Lena would be happy. And prayed that Lena would forgive her in the next lifetime. Not that she had a choice. There wasn’t much else for her to do but lose herself in sickening rumination.

The DEO had been ignoring her across the board. She was debriefed when she arrived at the DEO compound two weeks ago and then told she’d have to be held, for security reasons supposedly, for a short period. Everyone in the organization thus far had been polite but was clearly not at liberty to tell her anything. Whenever she came out of her room, which was a glorified holding a cell, she was avoided or told she was not authorized to ask questions nor go into any area of the compound except for her room and the cafeteria. She was not authorized to use a phone and with the DEO’s aversion to her questions she felt utterly alone.

Even Alex had disappeared from her life during the last two weeks. When Alex did finally appear at her room that morning after the weeks of silence she was told she was able to leave the compound under Alex’s supervision and debriefed again, as if she had already forgot the terms of her deal with Lillian and the DEO. Alex was able to tell Kara over their breakfast at a nearby donut shop that the DEO had worked with the U.S. military to heed Lillian’s information and that they had managed to stop the invaders across the country with minimal damage and civilian death tolls. They had also been able to work with other countries to stop the attacks abroad. Alex explained that she had been back and forth across the entire U.S. and to seven other countries in the last two weeks and that that is why she hadn’t been around. Kara didn’t find it comforting. It made her have even more questions than before.

Alex’s main duty now that she was back was to get Kara transitioned into a new life so that she could leave the compound on a permanent basis. They had already been clothes shopping to get Kara enough outfits until she was ready to get back out in the real world on her own. Alex had insisted that they stop at one of the art supply stores and get Kara a new set-up for National City since she had to leave her other one behind with the rest of her belongings in Boston and Metropolis. Kara tried to refuse but found that it was easier to just give into her sister but giving in was becoming harder and harder as they went through all the motions to establish her a new life.

“Here, put these on.” Alex pulled out a pair of glasses from her inner jacket pocket.

“Oh, c’mon Alex, I haven’t needed these in years.” It was the pair of glasses Jeremiah had made her when she first came to Earth. The lead-lined glasses helped her sensory overload in the beginning but after a year of wearing them she had learned to handle the extra information her senses picked up from her environment on her own.

“You can’t be Kara Danvers anymore and most people know you without your glasses.” Alex stressed as Kara begrudgingly slipped the glasses on and let her shoulders sink even further with yet another change. “Kara...”

Kara brought her hands up to her face as a sob took hold of her body. It was all too much. She felt like she was going to explode. But she quickly got a hold of herself. This had been her decision. It had been the right decision. She shook herself as if she was trying to rid herself of a demon and angrily wiped away the tear that had fell.

“If you can make yourself different, adopt a new life, then J’onn will let you out of the DEO permanently. But if you stay as Kara Danvers then you are a liability. There is a lot more behind Lillian Luthor’s threat. I can’t tell you much,” Alex sighed in frustration because she disagreed with keeping Kara in the dark, “but just know that whatever happens, you can’t break your word with Lillian.”

Kara knew that Alex didn’t mean it as a threat but that is how it felt. And to be honest Alex was in the right if she was threatening. Kara had spent many of her sleepless nights of thinking of every possible scenario of somehow getting back to Lena and that was still her top priority.

“I’m serious,” Alex continued as if she could read Kara’s mind. She pushed her around so that they were face-to-face. “You can’t go near Lena.”

She only nodded though her heart was screaming in protest.

Alex paid the hairstylist and ushered Kara out into the warm and breezy sunlight of a beautiful National City afternoon, her arm wrapped around Kara’s shoulder. “You wanna see your new place? It’s not far from here.”

“I get a new place? I thought I had to stay with you...”

“J’onn has released you into my custody for now. And I’ve had Vasquez spend the last week getting a place set-up so that you don’t have to sleep on Maggie and I’s couch. I have vouched for you but you have to stick to the terms with the DEO: create a new identity and lay low for a while.”

Kara nodded again. “Who is Vasquez?”

“She’s a member of my team. We are in a...special...division of the DEO.”

“What does ‘special’ mean?”

Alex stopped Kara in the middle of the sidewalk. There were so many questions she wanted to answer but just couldn’t right now. “I can’t tell you too much about my life in the DEO. You’re one of the few civilians who even know we exist but I want to tell you so much. I really do,” she pleaded.

“I get it, Alex.” Her voice was laced with disappointment. She had tried to be positive about Alex being back. Kara had thought that perhaps they would finally become closer now that they were living in the same city and that Alex would be there more for her through this substantial change. Yet this denial of information made her feel even more alone.

Alex sighed in annoyance. “I’m trying to convince J’onn to fully brief you or even let you join us. You can’t go back to journalism like you had originally wanted – it would just be too obvious.”

“Why don’t you guys tell me what I can do!” Kara snapped. “Everything that’s been said to me is no this and no that. I can’t be Kara anymore so who can I be?”

“Kara, don’t be like that. We’ll find you something! You could do some consulting or something like that for us–” Alex’s phone ringing interrupted her speculations.

Kara dropped the shopping bags with her new clothes and art supplies and sat down on the curb. She pulled her knees up to her chest as Alex stepped into the alley to have her conversation which was pointless because she could hear Alex’s side of it anyway with her super-hearing. She was sick and tired of the secrecy of the whole DEO and its nonsense. And she was tired of Alex trying to sell her a new life.

“That’s great news! I’ll tell her now. Thank you so much for doing this, J’onn. I appreciate it and I know Kara will too.”

Kara turned her head at the sound of her name and watched as Alex came out of the alleyway with a big smile across her face.

“I got permission from J’onn to get Lena’s medical records. Winn, another member of my team, pulled all of her information. She’s doing fine. She was actually released from the hospital this morning.”

Kara’s eyes fluttered shut and she let out a deep exhale in relief. “Thanks, Alex. I’m glad she’s...” She couldn’t finish the thought. She was so happy that Lena was doing well but at the same time she knew this was the beginning of the end. Lena would move on and forget her. She prayed for Lena to do so but the thought of it actually happening and what that meant for her was still painful. She’d have to move on too but couldn’t face the thought of that life.

Alex sat down next to Kara and wrapped her arms around her. “You’re going to be okay too, you know. It’s just going to take time.”

“I know.” Kara let her head lean against Alex’s and for a brief moment let her anger for Alex and the DEO’s secrecy go.

They sat like that for several minutes before Alex pulled Kara to her feet. “Let’s get you some food – real food, no more of that cafeteria stuff, and I’ll take you to your new place.”

Kara took a deep breath and let it go slowly before allowing Alex to lead her down the street.

************************************************************************************

The apartment was nice and bright. It was on the back corner of an old brick building in the heart of the Hillside district. Because she was on the top floor and the building across the alleyway was a story shorter than her own, she could see down the sloping hills of streets and residences to the bay.

“How am I going to be able to afford this?” Kara asked in disbelief. Not only was the apartment in a nice area and had a spectacular view but it was fully furnished from what she could tell, down to the brand new tupperware sitting in the kitchen cabinets.

“The DEO is taking care of everything. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Kara turned and evaluated her suspiciously. “Why?”

Alex was unpacking the bag of art supplies. They had already put all of the clothes they had bought away and visited the pharmacy down the block to get Kara some bathroom essentials. The apartment, although nicely furnished and decorated, felt more homey with their purchases. “You made a considerable sacrifice. It’s their way of paying you back.”

“You mean paying me to stay silent and away from Lena...”

Alex rolled her eyes as she folded the paper bag and placed it in a drawer. “That...too.”

Kara scoffed irritably and took a seat at the kitchen island. This was more than a thank you. Everything for her new life had been provided. The furnished apartment, a new phone, a computer, the clothes that Alex had charged to a DEO account, her very own DEO card to be used for groceries and spending. It was over the top.

Alex’s phone beeped and she groaned when she read the text message.

“What now?” Kara asked.

“Now comes the really hard part.”

Kara waited for an elaboration because in her opinion this had all been hard. “Which is...?”

“Telling mom.”

Eliza. Kara felt awful that she hadn’t even given a thought to her foster mother during her time being detained at the DEO. She groaned at the thought of her being off the grid and the worried state Eliza must be in because of it. “Eliza and I usually talk once a week. How is she not freaking out on you about me not talking to her?”

“We’ve been monitoring her phone calls and every call from her phone to yours or Lena’s we redirected back to the DEO. I called and told her that you had gone with Lena on urgent LuthorCorp business and that you’d call when you got back. But she’s in town and is checking to see if Maggie and I are free for dinner.”

“So now what are we going to tell her?”

“The truth. Which, I might add, is not going to go over so well. We might as well get this over with now.” Alex responded to the text message confirming that she was free and providing Kara’s new address as their meeting place. “I’m kind of freaking out here. I’m going to get my ass chewed out so bad.” She grabbed a glass from the cabinet and took out the bottle of whiskey they had also picked up on their trip to the pharmacy. She poured herself a healthy amount and downed it before pouring another.

Kara had some sympathy for Alex’s situation. Eliza did tend to get on to Alex more, especially when it came to taking care of Kara, but in the scheme of everything else going on she couldn’t muster much of the feeling.

Alex was oblivious to Kara’s indifferent state as she pulled a stack of menus for some of the nearby restaurants out of one of the drawers so that they could order in. If they even made it to dinner. “Last year,” she continued as she flopped into one of the stools at the island next to Kara, “she was mad at me that you and Lena hadn’t gotten engaged like that is somehow my–” She suddenly stopped as she realized what she was saying. God, it was going to take time to get used to Lena not being there. “I’m sorry.”

Kara’s eyes were watering. She pulled Alex’s whiskey bottle toward her and picked at the label. “That’s why Lena and I were in Metropolis that day – we were going to get married.”

“You were what?” Alex choked on her next sip.

“Lena had said that she didn’t want to wait anymore and that she was going to tell Lillian that we were getting married no matter what. I guess it didn’t go over well because when Lena came back from telling her mother and she insisted we needed to do it right then. That’s why we were in the limousine in Metropolis.” The tears started to fall as she remembered Lena’s smiling face from the limousine window. She could hear Lena’s words _‘Hey you. Want to get married?’_ so clear in her mind. If only she had said no. What if she had pulled Lena back into the apartment and told her to wait, just a day even? They wouldn’t be in this position. “It’s my fault, Alex.”

“Hey, no, no, no.” Alex set her glass down and took Kara into her arms for what seemed like the tenth time that day. “You can’t do that, you can’t second guess yourself. Those aliens were going to attack whether or not you and Lena were in Metropolis.”

“But I could have stopped her from even going to Metropolis. I should have kept her in Boston or I should have told her that we needed to wait!” The tears were really coming now. She thought she had cried enough over the last two weeks but that time seemed to have only weakened her ability to control it all.

“Kara, you had no control over those things. Don’t counterfactually think yourself to insanity.”

A series of quick raps on the front door interrupted their heart-to-heart.

“Oh God. Oh God. Fuck, here we go.” Alex released her and downed the rest of the whiskey in her glass. She put the bottle back into the paper bag and ran to place it behind the television, hopefully hiding it enough from her mother’s prying eyes. Another series of knocks, these more urgent, came from the door, and Alex groaned again. “Whatever you do, don’t tell mom that part, all right? She’s going to kill us both if you do.”

Kara nodded as she wiped away the tears. “Alex, this was my choice, not yours. She can’t be angry at you for it.”

Alex stopped with her hand on the doorknob and turned back to Kara. “When has that ever made a difference?”

And with that, she opened the door.

“Alex!” Eliza squealed when the door opened. She pulled Alex in for a hug but must have smelled the whiskey because her face turned to that of a disappointing glare that somehow still had so much effect on Alex even after twenty-six years of exposure.

“Hi, mom,” Alex grimaced and took the overnight bag from Eliza. She reached to grab the rolling suitcase as well, trying to be as helpful as she could. “I didn’t know you were coming to town.”

“With all of those awful attacks in London and then Metropolis it was hard for me to get a flight back here. I’m just so glad that Paris wasn’t attacked.” She evaluated the entryway of the apartment. “Is this you and Maggie’s new place?”

“No, actually it’s Kara’s new apartment...”

Kara took that as her cue and rose from her seat at the island. She walked toward the front door, her hands in her pocket, trying desperately to control the tears that still wanted to fall.

“Kara?!” Eliza was visibly more giddy at the sight of her youngest than she had been with Alex. “Oh my God, what are you doing here?!”

“Hi.” Kara let herself be wrapped up in Eliza’s arms.

“You changed your hair! It looks so good on you!” Eliza pushed her back and studied her. She ran her finger over the scab above Kara’s eyebrow, a concerned look blooming across her face. She quickly turned back to Alex as if the wound was her fault. Her eyes then swept the apartment living room and then toward the bedroom like she was seeking out someone else. She took note of how Kara was averting her eyes to the ceiling, the floor, really anywhere but her mother’s eyes, her lip tucked hard into her mouth by her teeth. “Girls...what’s going on?”

Kara gave a pleading look over Eliza’s shoulder at Alex. This was already harder than she thought it was going to be.

“Mom, we need to talk.” Alex sat the bags down next to the dining room table and ushered both Kara and Eliza into the living room.

“Kara, what happened to your face? Where is Lena?”

Every utterance of Lena’s name felt like a stab to Kara’s heart. A tear finally fell. “I...”

“Mom, just sit and let us explain.” Alex jumped in, ever trying to protect Kara and ease her obvious pain. She motioned for Eliza to sit on one couch while her and Kara took up residence  across from her. “I...I lied to you when I said Kara and Lena were out of the country for LuthorCorp business. Kara and Lena were caught in the middle of the alien attack in Metropolis.”

Eliza gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Is Lena okay?!”

Alex put her hands up, trying to get her mother to stay calm. “Lena was injured in the attack. She is fine now, though. But,” her eyes darted back to Kara before continuing, “Lillian made a deal with Kara and the DEO. You see, she had...” Alex tried to weigh what information she could reveal that was confidential but also told her mother enough about what was going on, “...inside information on how to stop this species of aliens and she was willing to give it to the DEO–”

“Lillian Luthor work with the DEO?” Eliza gritted with such disdain, hatred and skepticism radiating out of her eyes.

“Yes, in exchange for Kara giving up her relationship with Lena.”

Eliza face suddenly grimaced. “Kara! You didn’t!”

Kara dropped her head. Her voice was quiet and shaky when she responded. “I had to do something. I couldn’t let the attacks keep happening.”

“And Lena agreed to this as well?”

Alex swallowed hard. “That’s the thing. Lillian, I think, knows that these two would never stay away from one another so we had to...the conditions were that...we faked Kara’s death.”

“You did what?!” Eliza tore herself up from the couch and took two steps before rounding back on both of her daughters. “You made a deal with the devil?! Alex, you know what she has done to our family!”

Kara looked back and forth between the two of them in confusion. Eliza had apparently been cleared for the information about Lillian that had yet been told to her. “What do you mean what she has done to us?”

Alex gave her mother a stern look. “Kara, we can’t explain now but we will. I promise you I’ll get you cleared so you can understand more.”

Eliza started to pace, fuming over what had transpired. On every lap she glared at Alex.

“Go ahead and say it,” Alex spat irritably. She put her hands on her hips, ready to take her upcoming lashing.

“I don’t understand how you allowed your sister to do this, Alex!”

Alex looked over to Kara with a clear I-told-you-so face. “She’s an adult and the choice was her’s!”

“But you know better! You know what the Luthors are capable of! How could you let her make a deal with that...that...monster!”

“ _I_ didn’t let her do anything! The DEO assessed the risks and thought it was the best course of action but none of us forced this on Kara. She chose this!”

“How could you do this to Lena?!” It was unclear if the question was directed at Kara or Alex but it hit them both with the force of a thousand punches.

Alex shook her head. “I love Lena like a sister. Do you really think I’d do this to her without good reason?” Alex pointed down at Kara. “And this was the hardest decision for her and she is going to pay for it for a long time. Don’t take this out on either of us!”

“But you didn’t stop it, Alex! You should have stopped her from even having to make a decision like that. Now Lena is going to be alone with that mother of her’s and...” She trailed off as she realized she was getting back into the confidential information that Kara wasn’t cleared on.

Kara felt her stomach clench. What had she done? There was obviously so much more to this story. What had she left Lena to? “Mom, what do you mean?” She then turned to Alex. “What did I do?”

Eliza started to respond but Alex stepped in front of her mother and bulged her eyes out in warning. “Kara hasn’t been cleared!”

“No, tell me! Tell me right now what I’ve done!”

Eliza shot a look at Alex that silenced her and pushed her eldest out of the way so that she could take the seat next to Kara. “It’s about an organization known as Cadmus and your father’s death–”

“What does that have anything to do with Lena?” Kara shook and blinked several times in confusion. Her head was trying to connect what seemed like impossible dots.

“I’m not exactly sure how it all started...” Eliza looked to Alex for help starting this story.

Alex buried her face in her hands and shook her head. This was obviously happening and she was going to probably get court-martialed for it. She licked her lips in resignation and started to the best of her knowledge. “Cadmus was a member of a three-part network with the U.S. government and the DEO aimed at protecting the world from outside invaders.” She brought her head up and met Kara’s eyes. “The DEO’s purpose is to protect civilians. You can think of them as the military branch. Cadmus, on the other hand, was created for two reasons: to keep your cousin in check because the government feared what he could do if he ever turned on us and to study and extend our knowledge and use of alien technology.”

“Kal would never hurt anyone!” Kara argued.

“Kara, there are things out there, substances and weapons,” she pointed to Kara’s new scar on her forehead, “that can hurt Kryptonians and change your behavior. Cadmus was merely a division to provide a solution to any thing that did happen to you all.”

Kara crossed her arms. “Okay, how does this effect Lena?”

Eliza picked up where Alex had left off. “The Luthors worked for Cadmus. Lionel and eventually Alexander were consultants while Lillian was a lab manager in their medical division. I was recruited to Cadmus after I finished my doctorate and had a lab there as well although I never really interacted with the family.”

“Nine years ago,” Alex cut back in, “a remote species of aliens contacted Earth and set-up negotiations for a trading post just outside of our moon. Both the DEO and Cadmus met these aliens on the Origins Space Station. No one really knows what happened up there, and all the records are sealed, but someone fired at the aliens. The DEO claimed it was Cadmus’ people while they claimed it was us. Both sides lost people and Lionel was one of the casualties on Cadmus’ side.”

“I– Lena said Lionel died in a plane crash...” Kara stuttered.

“Lena doesn’t know the truth, Kara.” Eliza took her youngest’s hand and squeezed it. “When the teams came back Lillian was convinced that the DEO had purposely started the fight to overcome Cadmus’ influence with the government. She killed your father and his team as a way to get back at the DEO.”

“Mom, there is no proof of that,” Alex groaned because this was a discussion that they had had too many times already.

“She did it, Alex! I know she did!”

Kara took a deep breath trying to let all of this sink in. “Why didn’t you tell me this when Lena and I started dating? How could you handle our relationship if you believe her mother killed Jeremiah?”

“We don’t think Lena knows any of this,” Alex went on. “She was in Europe when all of this happened and it is well known that her and Lillian don’t get along. I – we – think that Lena has never known about Cadmus in any official capacity at least.”

“Lena is a good person,” Eliza continued. “I met her once, you know, before the DEO and Cadmus started clashing and before you two started dating. The Luthors had just adopted her and we were at a fundraising event for the organizations.” Eliza’s voice cracked as she brought the memory forward. “You should have seen the way Lillian treated her. She was just a child, couldn’t have been more than five years old, but Lillian treated her like a dog. I felt sorry for her and then when you two started dating I could still see that broken look in her eyes.”

Kara knew very well what look Eliza was referring to because Lena looked the same every time she came home from dealing with Lillian. “So what happened to Cadmus?”

“The government took the DEO’s side after the incident and defunded Cadmus. It fell apart soon after but we think that Lillian has been trying to use LuthorCorp as a front to start it up again. At least that is what are inside sources think.”

Eliza turned on Alex at this point. “Then why in God’s name would you make a deal with her?”

“Because it was the best way to stop the attacks,” Alex implored. “We were completely unprepared for what happened. And she didn’t ask for anything really in return–”

“Other than Lena...” Kara gritted.

“But why?” Eliza contended to Alex’s point. “Why would that have been her card?”

“Mom, I don’t know but at the time it was an easy decision for the DEO to accept. People were dying and more attacks were happening across the world. Would you really have done anything different?”

All three of them fell into an awkward silence, each trying to figure out an explanation.

Kara tried to fit this with the information she had about Lillian. Yes, Lillian had never liked her but she had always thought she was a decent person. She remembered all of the interviews Lillian had given in the aftermath of Lex’s attack, how she had promised to right his wrongs and provide a better future through LuthorCorp. And Lena had said that her relationship with her mother was anything but cold but they both had explained that by the fact the Lena was the result of Lionel’s indiscretions. Any person would naturally find it hard to connect to a daughter under those circumstances, that didn’t mean she was evil...

************************************************************************************

“I can walk, mother.” Lena made a face and propped herself up on her elbows as the medical transport team pulled her stretcher from the ambulance. “There is nothing wrong with me. The doctor cleared me for Christ’s sake!”

“The doctor said not to rush things. No need to push yourself doing something these people can do for you.” Lillian motioned arrogantly at the medical team that had travelled as part of her entourage that consisted of the the ambulance crew and a nurse who would stay with her the next week an unnecessary precaution.

Lena rolled her eyes and collapsed back on the pillow. There was no use fighting with her mother, not when she had so much control over everything. She felt like a helpless spoiled brat, though, laying there as they set the stretcher down on the ground gently when she, and they, knew she could walk.

The building manager rushed forward and explained how they had made every possible whim of Lillian’s come true so that Lena could rest as any high society girl should. Lillian barely nodded her approval of his string of commentary before shooing him off with a wave of her hand and a scowl across her face.

Lena wished that her apartment was in a building not owned by her mother. It was so irritating how integrated Lillian was in her life, had always been and would always be. She just wanted to be left alone.

The nurse who was to stay with Lena for the next few days hopped down from the ambulance and took Lena’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze in sympathy. Lena felt somewhat relieved that this nurse, Miranda, who had made it through every interview and God knows what other obstacles of ridiculous standards for Lillian, seemed to be on her side. She held Lena’s hand throughout the entire elevator ride before letting go as they wheeled Lena into the apartment.

The living room was overflowing with flowers and gifts. Lena groaned at the sight. She wanted to forget it all. Forget coming to Metropolis, forget the memory flashes of the attack. She wanted to forget how close she was to finally having a life of her own with Kara. _Kara_. Every time her name crossed her mind her stomach hardened and her heart skipped in the most unpleasant way. It was all her fault. She should have waited. God, why did she have to make that move at Lillian then? She would never forgive herself for what she did.

“Ms. Luthor, I’m going to return to the hospital and get the rest of Miss Luthor’s things and stop by my own apartment for necessities. Can I get you or Miss Luthor anything while I’m out?” Miranda asked as she got Lena settled onto the couch. The poor girl was still so pale. Rest at home and good food would benefit her greatly, Miranda thought. She hadn’t learned much about the girl but she had felt an instant connection to her and sympathized greatly with her after watching how Lillian treated her.

Lillian evaluated Lena closely. Her eyes had maintained that broken look like the green that was once there had died but for the most part she did look fine enough to be by herself for a short period of time. “Will you be alright without Miranda for a few hours, Lena? Viktor will be here soon and we’ll be in a meeting for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I’m fine and I’ll be fine,” Lena snapped.

Lillian nodded at Miranda who quickly left the apartment. She looked around the apartment, feeling awkwardly out of place in her daughter’s home. Despite owning the building, and therefore the apartment, Lillian had never really been in the apartment of her youngest child. And Lena had never offered up an invitation to join her there for tea or dinner. She resigned herself to a chair across from Lena and was hit with a sudden wave of deja vu from the night Lena had informed her about her plans to marry that girl. Her eyes examined Lena’s too pale face. Lena had changed. It wasn’t only her eyes but also how she conducted herself. She was colder, sharp and bitter.

“Stop looking at me like that, mother.”

“Like what, Lena? Like I’m concerned for my daughter who was just released from the hospital?”

Lena scoffed at the reply. She glanced around the apartment as if she was looking for something to help her out of being alone with her mother. Finding nothing to distract her, she settled for returning Lillian’s stares. They hadn’t spoken of Kara since the day Lillian had informed Lena of her death but Lena could feel the weight of that conversation still pressing down on them. If they did speak to one another it was mere pleasantries or talk of business. And that was what Lena defaulted to now. “What’s this meeting about?”

“A potential merger.”

Lena made to stand from the couch. “Then I should come with you...” She inhaled deeply and took two shaky steps toward the bedroom to go get dressed.

“Sit back down,” Lillian instructed though she didn’t move to help Lena when she started her uneasy progression. “You are not going with us. Viktor is bringing you a copy of the proposal that you can read here.”

Lena rounded clumsily on her mother. She was surprised by how quickly she switched to rage at her mother’s command but she was sick of it all. “I am still president of LuthorCorp and I will not have you telling me what I can and cannot do!”

Lillian couldn’t help the involuntary twitch of a snarl that took her face. She quickly turned it to a reassuring smile. “Of course you are, sweetheart. This is just a preliminary meeting, nothing committing. Please, Lena, you need your rest.”

Lena wasn’t sure what she hated more, Lillian placating her or arguing with her. She opened her mouth to retaliate but a knock at the door left her unspoken words dangling from her tongue. Lillian rose from her seat, her eyes sweeping Lena from head to toe as if she was sizing an opponent up, and opened the door to allow Viktor Brandt inside.

Viktor was a very elegant man in his early sixties. He was very tall and thin, with blue eyes and a deep voice that could command a room. He had been one of Lionel’s closest friends and had made sure that LuthorCorp kept running since the elder Luthor’s untimely death. As he entered the apartment, he smiled wide at Lena, completely oblivious to the tension between the two women or polite enough to ignore it, and stooped to kiss her cheek. “It’s so good to see you up and about! How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, Viktor. Thank you.” The word ‘fine’ didn’t even sound like a word to her anymore. “Tell me more about this merger.” She let him help her back to the couch where he settled her before taking up residence next to her.

“We are looking to fold Virtue Crest Corporation into the LuthorCorp family.” He opened his briefcase and took out a sizable document with a post-it labelling it as her copy. “At the moment, they are at the forefront in the production of suborbital spacecraft.”

“Then why do they want to sell?” Lena found some comfort in turning her brain over to business matters. It was a relief to use her intelligence rather than sitting in a hospital room with mundane daytime television.

“It started as a family business, a hobby really for Mr. Dexus, that has turned into something so much more. I don’t think they expected it to take off like it did. Eventually NASA and the ESA came calling and wanted to contract some work. VCC just can’t keep up with the demand. They don’t have the production facilities or the finances to really get out there. A sell-out now is smart and they know it based on the price tag they have slapped on themselves.”

“You said ‘fold them into the LuthorCorp family’, does that mean that we are going to maintain their employees?” Lena opened the document to the contents page and then turned to the personnel section when Viktor affirmed this information. She skimmed the biographies of the main shareholders. “I want to meet with the daughter. Her father is about to sell her future and that can be something that is hard to swallow no matter how much money comes with it. I want to feel her out before we commit to anything and bring her in as a manager, yes?”

Viktor nodded his approval. “When you are back on your feet and up to flying we’ll take you out to National City and let you meet them. Perhaps get you a tour of their facilities as well.”

Lillian had watched the entire exchange with disdain. Her goal to keep Lena at bay for LuthorCorp business was thus far failing. She had suggested the merger with VCC because she hoped they could be utilized for Cadmus’ causes and thus would have to keep a close eye on Lena to make sure she didn’t shoot the endeavour down. “Viktor, we should be going.”

Lena wished them luck and watched as they took their leave. Once the front door had shut behind them, she leaned her head against the back of the couch. This was the first time she had been truly alone and the silence she once craved now felt like a cage.

After a few moments of the silence she decided to busy herself with the proposal again. She read it cover to cover, making occasional notes here and there. When she finished she looked around the apartment again in uncertainty. She had become so used to Kara’s presence in her life that being alone was going to take some getting used to. She missed the sounds of Kara typing out a new piece from across the room and the way she would look up and smile at Lena when she caught her staring. She missed how warm Kara’s presence had made this apartment seem.

And that was when she realized that Kara’s boxes were missing.

She tore from room to room, as fast as her body would let her, in search of them. She let out a strangled sob of relief when she found them in one of the guest bedroom’s closet. As she opened one of the boxes to confirm they were Kara’s things, her legs finally gave out and she sank to her knees. She pulled out one of Kara’s hoodies. It still smelled like Kara’s unique smell, something so pure and bright. It was the smell of a warm sunny afternoon. She clutched it to her chest as she greedily took another deep breath. And then the tears came. She hadn’t cried since the day her mother had informed her of Kara’s death but the last two weeks of sorrow finally broke free.

It took almost an hour to rein in her grief. She questioned every decision she had made up to this point and ran through scenario after scenario of what she should do now. When she was able to make herself stand and the tears stopped coming, she awkwardly dragged one of the boxes of Kara’s clothes to their – her – bedroom and put it in the closet. She didn’t trust Lillian not to throw them away the first chance she got. She was surprised that she hadn’t had whoever move the boxes do it then.

The sound of keys came from the front door and then she heard it open. Lillian and Viktor’s voices became louder as they entered her living room. She walked back down the hall to greet them. She really wasn’t ready to deal with it all and she paused just around the corner, one more moment of being just Lena was what she needed.

“Lena, you really should be resting,” Lillian chided when Lena did enter the living room.

Lena ignored her mother and instead addressed Viktor. “Do I have a secretary yet?

“Why would you need a secretary?” Lillian butted in before Viktor could respond.

“For when I start at LuthorCorp on Monday. I have some things I want to get started immediately.”

Viktor frowned at the exchange, uneasy of Lena’s coldness and Lillian’s somewhat restrained irritation. “You do. She doesn’t start for another month though. We weren’t really anticipating you here in Metropolis so soon.”

“You need your rest!” Lillian protested, half out of concern for her daughter and half out of concern for her grip on LuthorCorp’s power.

“No, mother, I don’t. I need to be working.”

Viktor considered her for a moment. “I think it’s a great idea. You can start with half days in the lab and half days with me learning the ropes. We’ll ease you into taking over.”

Lillian shot him a look of death.

“I think that my first endeavor for LuthorCorp,” Lena continued, “will be establishing a National City branch of LuthorCorp. I don’t understand how we’re not already open for business there especially with as many facilities and labs we have there.”

“Now wait just a moment–” Lillian spun back to Lena.

“I’ll need a full progress report of the VCC meeting as well as all of our holdings in National City on my desk Monday morning when I arrive, Viktor.”

Viktor hesitated and looked between both women. He feared being on Lillian’s bad side but Lena was President of LuthorCorp and would be CEO soon enough. He was going to have to play this one very carefully because he suspected that Lena, like her father, expected loyalty but crossing Lillian was a death wish in its own right. “Of course, Lena. I’ll put in the call to get everything ready for you. Lillian, I’ll make sure she doesn’t take on too much all at once but she can at least get started on some things.”

“Thank you, Viktor. That will be all. Please enjoy your weekend and I will see you first thing Monday morning.” Lena plastered on a fake smile. She let him kiss her cheek again as he took his leave. When he had turned his back on them to leave she casted a daring look to her fuming mother. _Do it. Contradict me. Fight me on this. You won’t win._

“This is absolutely ridiculous.” Lillian threw her hands up and shook her head as soon as the front door closed behind Viktor. “You need to recover fully.”

“Recover from what exactly? A head injury or the loss of...her?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the name.

Lillian sat defeatedly on the couch. “Both, I suppose.”

“Well I don’t really care what you say, mother.” She sat down in the chair across from her mother. LuthorCorp was now her life and it would be the one and only thing she would live for. Her work would be her life and it would need to be her lover if she was going to attempt to fill this void in her heart. And so that was the promise she made to herself right then: make the world a safer place so no one else would lose their loved ones like she had. She vowed that she would put LuthorCorp at the front of Earth’s anti-alien movement. She would avenge Kara’s death. “So how was the meeting? Does it still look like a good investment?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys still there?
> 
> As always, I read and edit these myself so all errors and typos are my own. 
> 
> Come yell at me @nevertobeships


	4. Chapter 4

Four months later.

************************************************************************************

“I like the new painting you started,” Alex said as they walked out of the jeweler's shop into the late afternoon October sun.

The painting Alex was referring to had been sitting unfinished for weeks on Kara’s easel. She had thrown away the other four attempts she had made across various canvases. And it was not just her painting. She had a dozen half read books strewn about the apartment and a paragraph or two of several different articles across a variety of legal pads. In the months since coming to National City she could not seem to finish anything. 

She had settled for spending most of her time sitting on the roof of her apartment building looking out to the bay or walking her neighborhood, always staying within her agreed upon range with the DEO. Alex and Maggie dragged her off the roof and to dinner a few nights a week, and sometimes out to a movie or to a baseball game when they got time off work. That was the one good thing that had come out of all of this. Her and Alex had started to truly bond like sisters, at least to the degree that Kara’s still grieving self would allow. 

As predicted, Alex had faced the wrath of the DEO when she reported that her and Eliza had briefed Kara on Lillian Luthor. She was put on a two week suspension, though it did not really seem to bother her. She spent the majority of those two weeks in Kara’s apartment trying to help her younger sibling adjust. There were days during that time where Kara almost forgot about her previous life as Alex laughed at a television show or curled up across the couch with her own book. Inevitably though their conversations would somehow lead back to something that would remind her of Lena or her time on the east coast. After dancing around the topic of Lena for days, Alex had finally sat Kara down and forced her to talk about what had happened. Alex apologized over and over for letting Kara get stuck in that situation of having to choose. In hindsight, she admitted, her and Eliza should have told both Kara and Lena the truth in the beginning. Alex maintained that she nor the DEO thought Lena had anything to deal with Cadmus or the attack years ago on the DEO which was a relief to Kara. There was no cell in her body that believed Lena could be evil. Kara repeatedly told Alex that it had been her decision and her decision only to leave Lena and thus get the intel to stop the attacks, and that she would do it again if given the chance. She did not think she could live through it again but knowing how many people they had been able to spare by stopping the attacks and now knowing the truth behind Lillian’s veiled threats and vile dislike had made her heart settle. 

When Alex had returned to work, Kara had spent the majority of her time trying to piece together every incident she knew about Lillian and Lena in an effort to explain not only what happened to Jeremiah but also what led to Lillian’s deal at the hospital. She was beginning to put more and more credence into the possibility that Lillian had disliked her all along because she knew about her relationship to Alex, a DEO team leader, and maybe even their mother. Eliza had said that she had worked for Cadmus for a brief period when her and Alex were just children. Maybe in a way Lillian thought Kara was guilty by association since she believed it was Jeremiah that had brought about Lionel’s death. 

“I can’t seem to find the right inspiration,” Kara huffed. Inspiration was not the right word. It was more like she could not find the motivation to complete anything but inspiration would have to do to appease Alex.  

“I’m just glad you are painting again. You seem like you’re finally starting to settle in here and I know that makes me feel better. I’m sure mom is happy about that too.”

Eliza had to go back abroad for the DEO but she still called Kara every single day. She quickly stopped her lashing out at both her and Alex about the deal they had made with Lillian. She did not seem like she was over it but had at least stopped bringing it up. She had wanted to call Lena and that had led to another fight. Neither her nor Alex had ever been really close to Lena, their respective careers and Lena and Kara’s school schedules had seen to that, but both Danvers women still felt Lena was part of the family and missed her presence in their lives.

Alex looked to the sun as it was slowly slipping over the bay. She checked her watched and grimaced. “I really need to get going. My plane leaves in two hours and I still have to pack.”

“Where are you going?”

“Geneva. There is going to be a conference with representatives from a lot of countries about the attacks. I think the U.N. is wanting to put together some plan as a cohesive group should we ever get invaded again.”

Kara sighed and shook her head. “Those attacks have put us back years on alien rights.”

She had followed every news story about politicians coming forward and declaring the time ripe to ban aliens. There was even talk of forcing aliens to identify themselves and register with the government. Attacks on aliens had quadrupled in the last few months and sadly many had died as a result. Overnight the world had done a complete flip on their assimilated members from places beyond. Even Superman was not spared from the attacks. His monument in Metropolis was repeatedly vandalized and many chose it as their venue for their protests.

“Just another reason why I am glad you are here and I can keep you safe,” Alex said as she hugged her. “Alright, I really do have to go. You take this,” she handed Kara the small gift bag with the necklace they had just purchased for Eliza’s upcoming birthday, “and I’ll text when I get to Geneva. Don’t forget you have dinner tomorrow with Maggie.”

Kara kissed Alex on the cheek and gave her a squeeze. “Please be careful.”

************************************************************************************

She had spent the rest of the late afternoon wandering her neighborhood. She knew every building, every crack in the sidewalk of her allotted three mile radius. When her stomach began to rumble she allowed her feet to take her to one of her favorite eating spots, just down the block from her apartment. She ordered her usual and a coffee to-go.

“Hey! Turn that up!” someone shouted. 

Kara turned to the person and then looked up to where he was pointing to the television mounted above the counter. The newscaster’s voice suddenly filled the cafe as one of the waitresses handled the remote and the patrons all stopped to watch. 

“Flight 237 bound for Geneva has suffered from apparent engine failure. The pilot looks to be circling the city in search of an emergency landing site...”

Her coffee exploded everywhere as it hit the floor.

“Did he say Geneva?” Her mind was frozen in terror. “Alex!”

She darted out of the cafe, ignoring the cashier’s yells about leaving her food behind. Her eyes immediately went up to the sky. 

Rounding the buildings of downtown was the plane. One side was spewing flames, smoke billowing into the dusk colors of the sky. People along the sidewalk were gasping and pointing up. Cars stopped in the middle of the street, their passengers stepping out to get a look for themselves. Sirens could be heard in the distance. 

Kara ripped off her glasses and focused on the plane. She could see Alex who looked calm and cool under this mortal pressure. The confirmation that this was indeed Alex’s flight made Kara’s heart race, though. 

She cannot lose someone else. She will not let it happen again. 

She sprinted into the alleyway, ridding herself of her jacket and glasses along the way. It had been a dozen years since she had flown and she was unsure if she remembered how. She felt so clumsy as she picked up her pace but the adrenaline that was now coursing through her was quickly overcoming any doubts.

Come on, Kara. You can do this!

She jumped in the air and felt herself hover for a few seconds. There was a new energy, above and beyond the adrenaline, flowing through her veins and she tried to focus her brain on it, harness it into action. She jumped again and this time went further up but it was still not enough. That feeling, that energy, seemed to slip away from her like she was trying to scoopup water with her hand. The pavement under her cracked when she hit the ground this time. She willed her legs to push even harder as she continued her sprint down the alley. With a deep breath, she tightened her core and sprung back into the air. 

The boom of her take off was almost deafening in her ears and she heard several windows of the surrounding buildings shatter. 

She clipped the top of the building to the east causing concrete to rain down into the alleyway. She swerved left first and then took a sharp right to avoid an apartment building. Only then did she break free into the open sky. 

She was able to slow her speed down and hovered high over the neighborhood as she let the energy take possession of her every cell. She turned and tracked the plane as it began another lap around the buildings of downtown National City. 

How was she going to do this? 

Stabilize the plane then worry about getting it out of the air, her instincts said. 

Matching its anticipated trajectory, she flattened herself down and clenched her core again to shoot off toward the plane.

A second engine had blown out, this time on the opposite side of where the fire and smoking were already causing damage. She knew the pilots would not have the ability to keep it in the air much longer. Boosting her speed once more she came up on the wing and gently took it into her hands. It was hot but it did not burn her. She started to lift it up, trying to get the entire plane to come out of its nosedive, but the wing started to crack with the pressure she was putting on it. It would snap off in her hands if she did anymore. 

In one of the plane’s windows she could see Alex who looked terrified and relieved at the sight of her peering out at her. Alex pressed her hand to the window and smiled at her. The smile gave her strength and made her believe in herself – it was just what she needed to do this. 

Kara let go of the plane causing it to tip forward again. At least the pilots have them over water, she thought. It would be a lot easier to bring it down onto the water than to try and put it down over land. The water would help her harness the weight of the plane once it was out of the air. 

She glided underneath the plane and pushed it back up into a level position. She was amazed that it took no effort at all to hold this plane up, it felt no heavier than a box on moving day. The plane moved with ease at her every touch. She put the plane in a pattern of descent, allowing herself to lose a dozen feet in altitude at a time and gently bringing the plane down with her. It was only with sheer luck that she saw the bridge out of the corner of her eye. 

Oh, Rao, come on! 

She cannot push the plane back up – it had already lost the third engine and the paneling on that wing was raining down to the bay. Forcing the plane higher could make it fall apart faster. There was no time to get it low enough to go under the bridge either, though. She flipped and held the plane above her as she evaluated the bridge. 

She would have to take them between the towers, keeping them above the traffic stopped there but underneath the architectural arch. As she dug her hands into the metal of the plane’s belly and pulled it into a sideways position, she felt her muscles finally strain at the effort. It was a good strain, however, like runner’s high where everything seems to fall into place, her mind and body syncing together for the task. The plane narrowly scraped through the gap and she quickly flattened it back out before letting them fall the last feet to the water.

She took a deep breath and when the water rushed over her head she spun and placed her hands and feet on the plane’s belly. She could feel its weight pressing down onto her as its momentum settled. Only then did she release the plane. She swam several feet down as she watched it above her, trying to detect any sign of it starting to sink. 

She had done it.

She felt a level of relief she did not think was possible. Alex was safe, they were all safe. The energy was still flowing through her system and she let herself sink further as she relished in it. The white strobe lights from the wings of the plane illuminated the water around her. They flashed every second but in between each flash the darkness of the ocean pressed in from all sides. 

It felt like her pod again. There was a region of the Phantom Zone, just before the pod was spat from it, that was nothingness. Despite knowing full well that she was on Earth, she could almost feel the pod shaking all around her. The pod had malfunctioned and the erratic beeping of the electric system cutting in and out was what had woken her from her induced slumber. She remembered how scared she had felt knowing her eyes were open but only seeing that deep darkness. There was no glow from the stars, no celestial haze to light up the pod. For a moment she thought she had been blinded. She prayed to Rao to get her to Kal. He was her mission, her hope, her family. With one more violent shake, the pod spun and suddenly there were stars around her. The electric system came back to life and the pod soon redirected itself along its intended path to Earth. She did not know how long she had been in darkness. It could have been just a moment or it could have been years. All she remembered was the fear and her prayer. 

This time, however, she was not frightened of the darkness. It was rather soothing, if she was honest. How easy it would be to let herself continue to sink, give herself to an eternal peacefulness right here in the water. 

_ I will find you. _

The voice cut through the water causing her eyes to fly open. 

Lena?

She floated in a slow circle, kicking her legs to stay at that depth. There was nothing around her but darkness.

_ I will find you. _

This time it was quieter but left no doubt in Kara’s mind that it was Lena. 

She looked up to the surface and saw how far she had sunk. The lights of the plane were so small and distant. With one last look around into the darkness, she began kicking upward, pressing the water down with her arms as fast as she could. As her head broke the surface, the peacefulness turned to sirens and voices of both relief and fright from the passengers. She pulled herself up on the wing just as the door of the plane opened. She froze as the face of one of the pilots appeared. He too stilled at the sight of her. She looked to Alex’s window and saw panic written across her face. 

_ Go! _ Alex mouthed at her. 

“I don’t know who you are but thank you,” the pilot said. 

She gave him a quick smile and shot herself back into the air, Lena’s voice, not the pilot’s, still ringing in her ears. 

************************************************************************************

Rao, she felt good. She forgot the high she got from flying, the rush of air cleansing her system. She could still feel the energy pumping through her as she settled on the couch with a slice of cold pizza and her laptop. 

“Who is the mystery woman? Another superhero or guardian angel?” The newscaster asked as images of the plane bobbing in the bay flashed across the screen. 

She opened the laptop and typed in the url. As she took a bite of pizza and hit enter, the news report on the screen froze. 

“Oh my God, Kara...”

She had not heard Alex come into the apartment, she had been too focused at the task at hand. She quickly closed the laptop and jumped up with a smile. 

“I know, right! I can’t believe I did that–”

“What were you thinking?!”

“What?” Kara stuttered, confused by Alex’s anger. “I saved you...”

“You exposed yourself!” Alex screamed. “The whole point of your disguise and keeping you under supervision of the DEO was to keep you out of sight for Lillian. You have to keep up your end of the bargain!”

“No one knows it was me, Alex!” She pointed to the television as evidence. “The news reports say they don’t know who it is.”

“The pilot saw you!”

“He’ll never recognize me.”

“You can’t ever do this again!” Alex gritted. “It’s not safe. Not only did you put yourself out there for Lillian to see but now people know there is another alien flying about! We just had this conversation this afternoon about the importance of keeping you hidden because you’re an alien!”

“What was I supposed to do? Let you die? Let all those people die?”

Alex did not have an answer to that. Keeping Lillian Luthor’s promise would mean that yes Kara should have stayed out of sight, let the plane go down. But Alex knew that Kara had done the right thing. She herself would have done it too. 

She stomped into the kitchen and found the bottle of whiskey she had left there. She did not bother with a glass. She had almost died. She had almost lost her entire team. And now she would have to do damage control to keep Kara safe. 

“I see you remembered how to fly,” she finally said into the silence. 

“Barely. It took me a few tries.” Kara dropped her head and distracted herself with the hem of her shirt. “I can’t lose you, Alex. I can’t stand to lose one more person in my life.” Her voice cracked as her eyes started to water. 

Alex sat the whiskey bottle on the island with a thud and took her sister into her arms. “I know. Thank you for saving my life.”

Kara wrapped her arms tightly around Alex and let a sob go into her shoulder. She had not realized how touch starved she had been these last few months and every hug from Alex gave her more strength. The stress of everything that had happened since Metropolis, finding out who Lillian Luthor really was, nearly losing Alex – it all seeped out of her as Lena’s voice replayed over and over in her head. 

“I’ll have to take you in tomorrow,” Alex said. 

Kara was relieved when she pulled back and saw that the anger had left Alex’s face. “I know.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“No, go. I’m sure Maggie is worried sick about you.”

Alex pulled out her phone. “Eight missed calls and thirty-three text messages – I’d say so.”

“Go love on your girl.”

“I’ll pick you up around nine?”

“I’ll be ready.”

“I hope so. You are about to get the ass chewing of your life.”

Kara returned to the couch after Alex let herself out. She unpaused the news coverage on the television but muted the rest of the story. As she pulled her laptop back toward her, she looked once more to the door to make sure Alex had really gone, and then opened it up. 

There on the LuthorCorp webpage was a picture of Lena, interim CEO and President. Kara studied the picture and then closed her eyes. 

_ I will find you. _

************************************************************************************

“Hi, Jess. Is Lena in?” Peter Tannenbaum asked as he steadied himself between her desk and his crutches. 

Jess smiled up at him and picked up the phone. “Ms. Luthor? Mr. Tannenbaum is here to see you.” There was a very brief exchange before she hung up the phone. “You can go right in.”

She stood and held the door for him as he expertly maneuvered his way into the office on the crutches. It had become second nature to him at this point. He was thankful for no longer being in a cast but the nearly full leg brace, while letting him finally wear pants over his leg, still required him to use crutches at times when he needed to cover long distances. It was a little tricky with his briefcase but he was managing. 

Lena was typing away at her computer, a scowl across her face. She briefly glanced up and nodded at him in acknowledgement before letting her eyes drop back to the screen. 

“You can sit if you like,” she said.

Peter looked at her curiously. This was the first time they had been alone since the attack. He had stayed in the hospital nearly a month and then did another month at home. When he had returned to work he had only seen Lena in meetings and even then she had barely met his eyes. Somehow in the short months between the accident and now, she had become a completely different person. Rumors were spreading around the office about her ruthlessness and the staff was quicker to get out of her way as she came down the hall than they were with Lillian. He had not expected her coldness to extend to him. 

Jess had followed him into the room. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“Yes, cream no sugar,” he ordered.

“Ms. Luthor? Anything for you?”

Lena brought her eyes up again, this time they were soft and kind. “I’m fine, thank you though.”

As Jess delivered his coffee, Peter noted that it seemed like the only person on Lena’s good side was her secretary. He had no idea what the two had been through together, though, to make their relationship like it was. 

Jess had already been extremely nervous about starting at LuthorCorp. It was one thing to work at the biggest company in the world but totally another to be hired to work for the future CEO. Lena was not like anything she had expected. She was cold but not rude, demanding but not completely unreasonable. The political climate around her new boss, however, was something she had not been prepared to handle. 

She heard the rumors from day one that Lena was going crazy like her brother and that it had been brought on by the attack on Metropolis. The rumors bounced between that she had accidently brought the aliens to Earth with some new outrageous invention to she had paid them to come so that the Luthor family had an excuse to use their old anti-alien sentiments. One rumor said she was going crazy because she had lost the man she was about to marry in the attack and that she was determined to avenge his death. Some were ridiculous enough to say that she was actually an alien trying to pose as Lionel Luthor’s daughter. Jess did not give the rumors credit though there were times where it seemed like some may have had a grain of truth to them. 

On her third week on the job Lena had not shown up for work and was not answering her phone. Jess had gone to the apartment to check on her, letting herself in with the spare key that Lena had given her, to find her cold and distant boss crumpled on the floor of the guest bedroom closet, surrounded by boxes of clothes and notebooks, sobbing incoherently. Then there was the day, a week or two later, that they had been going uptown for a meeting when a cyclist had cut in front of their limousine. When the driver had slammed on the brakes it had brought about a panic attack for Lena. It took nearly two hours to calm her down causing them to miss the meeting and for Lena to get a severe lecture from Lillian as a result.

There had been half a dozen other incidents like that over the last few months. Lena always apologized afterward but never really opened up to Jess about whatever was going on with her. 

Jess knew that Lena was not crazy, but suffering. No one else in Lena’s life really seemed to care, not even Lillian. Lena never went out nor did she seem to have any friends. She worked for days on end and then had a breakdown. Worked for another ungodly amount of time and had another breakdown. It pained Jess to think that she was suffering like this alone. Pretty quickly she adopted not only her secretarial role but also a caretaker role of sorts for Lena. She was a secretary, a personal assistant, and a babysitter all in one. Not that she minded, the pay was very good and she felt some sort of connection to Lena, one she could not quite explain. She hoped that maybe when Lena came out the other side of this suffering that they would perhaps be friends. 

Peter studied the office while he sipped his coffee. It was expertly designed and furnished – no thanks to Lena, he assumed. Unlike many members of the upper management of LuthorCorp, Lena’s office was extremely impersonal. Where most people had pictures of their family and friends or small decorations like a mug with a favorite sports team logo or the painting of a favorite artist there was nothing. White walls, white floors, and clean lines everywhere. It was a workspace and a workspace only. The only thing “personal” was a pillow and a throw that were neatly stacked on the white couch.

Lena finished her typing, the swish of the e-mail leaving her mailbox confirming she had finished her task. She looked everywhere in the room but at his face. 

“What can I help you with, Peter?”

Only after a moment of silence, of no response on his end, did she finally look at him. 

What he saw tore at his heart. She was so pale, paler than usual. While most people in the office were still sporting their summer tans, it appeared that Lena had hid herself in a cave these last few months. There were dark circles under her eyes that seemed to emphasize the darkness he found in the once bright irises. She had thinned considerably and not in the athletic way. She was a cruel skeleton of her former self. Still so beautiful but so far from the Lena of four months ago. 

“When’s the last time you left this room?” he quietly asked. 

She let out a cruel laugh and busied herself with several of the open files lying across her desk. “I was in a meeting on the thirty-second floor an hour ago.”

“Let me rephrase that: when is the last time you left this building?”

She snapped one of the files closed and glared at him. “What do you want?”

“I want to know what happened to you. We haven’t spoken since the attack. You’re being so cold to everyone. You apparently don’t ever leave the office.” He nodded to the setup on the couch. “Rumor has you’re working twelve hour days.”

Wrong. I’ve been working twenty hour days, she thought. 

“You need to get out of here, take a break,” he continued as he sat his coffee cup and saucer on the front of her desk.

“The National City branch isn’t going to open itself. We are already behind on our January first scheduled open as it is.”

“Fuck National City. You have a whole division here that is working on it. Why do you need to be as well?”

“You’ve been in all the meetings. I am going to run the LuthorCorp branch in National City for the foreseeable future.” I want out of this goddamn city and away from my mother. “I think I have every right to be involved as this is  _ my _ company, no?”

“What about after your birthday? When you become CEO? What then?”

“Then I will officially take over LuthorCorp. I am pretty much doing all the duties of CEO now. What difference will that make?”

“You can’t keep this work schedule up. And you can’t keep treating everyone like they’ve conspired against you. You are not this cold, Lena.” 

“I’m not Lillian.”

“You’re right. In a lot of ways you’re worse.” It was a low blow and he knew it but it was the truth. 

“Get out. Now.” It was not a scream but it might as well have been. 

The air was suddenly thick with their tension and that darkness that had pooled in her eyes seem to spread across her entire face. For a moment he was cruelly reminded of Lex and that frightened him beyond words.

He opened his briefcase and pulled out a stack of files. He dropped them from high up and it shook her entire desk as they thudded down hard. 

“You should have these. Do yourself and the rest of us a favor and get out of this office.”

“Go!” This time she did scream.

Lena’s chest was heaving as the door to her office closed behind him. There was truly no satisfying anyone. Those who knew about her losing Kara told her to get over it. So she worked. Then they turned around and told her not to work. What else was she supposed to do? Go home to her empty apartment and just sit? Let what memories she did have of that afternoon terrorize her? Or let the memories of her and Kara, together and happy, slowly continue to break her down? Everyone was being fucking ridiculous about it all. 

She looked at the stack of files that he had violently dropped on her desk. Many were bent or torn, dirty like they had been thrown about outside. She lifted a couple up and saw that they were all like that. Then one of them caught her eye. It had a brown smudge across the top. It looked like dried blood. She scrunched her nose up at that file but pulled it out of the stack anyway. What she saw when she opened it cut her deeper than a knife. 

_ This prenuptial agreement by and between Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers… _

She threw the file hard across the room, many of its papers coming lose and scattering in all directions. Then she just could not control herself. She grabbed the rest of the stack and threw them too as hot tears ran down her cheeks. She swiped everything off of her desk before collapsing on the floor in angry sobs. 

Jess had curiously watched Peter leave Lena’s office. Clearly whatever he had gone in there to say had not been agreeable because he came hobbling out muttering under his breath, his face bright red. It was the sound of china shattering against the wall that made her quickly investigate the event that had just transpired. 

Lena’s office looked like a tornado had gone through it. Papers and file folders were everywhere. She could see the place on the wall where Peter’s coffee cup had hit, brown liquid dripping down the wall to the broken pieces now on the floor. She found Lena sprawled on the floor behind her desk, one high heel sloppily discarded and her blouse half untucked from her skirt. She was sobbing with her head in her hands. 

“Ms. Luthor?”

When Lena raised her head Jess saw blood across her pale forehead. 

She got the first aid kit from her own desk and hurried back to Lena, stepping over the contents of the desk that now littered the floor. She sank to her knees next to Lena and brushed the dark hair back from her face. There was no wound on her head after she cleaned the blood away. She gently turned over Lena’s hand and found a gash on her palm. She bandaged it as well as she could. 

Lena’s eyes were distant as Jess worked her over, like she was not even in the same realm. She was shivering and each breath she took was shallow and sounded painful. The only indication that she was aware of what was going on around her was when Jess brought over the blanket from the couch and Lena wrapped it tightly around her as she hugged her knees and looked out the window. 

Jess began to clean up the mess. It took her nearly twenty minutes to get Lena’s desk back in order. There was a couple files about the National City branch that she would have to recopy because they were stained with coffee. Then she moved to the files across the room. There were five folders total and she laid them out across the coffee table and tried to piece each sheet of paper back into its proper place. When she reached the prenuptial agreement cover sheet she realized what was going on: one of the rumors had been somewhat true. 

************************************************************************************

“Ms. Danvers.” J’onn stood at the head of the table in the conference room stoically, unmovable like a brick wall. “You broke your contract.”

She felt Alex’s hand on her knee under the table in a show of moral support. “I did.”

J’onn scoffed. “You don’t seem like you regret it.”

“I don’t.”

“Do you have any idea what you have done? I now have a whole team monitoring every news outlet in the country to make sure they don’t identify you. Thanks to you I am having to funnel resources to not only keeping your identity hidden but also cleaning up the mess you made with that plane–”

His tirade was interrupted as a DEO team, all in identical black uniforms entered the room. Alex smiled at them and then began introducing them each to Kara. 

“This is the team you saved, Kara. They wanted to come say thank you.”

J’onn threw his hands up in frustration but remained silent throughout the whole ordeal.

Kara shook each one of their hands as she finally put names she had heard Alex mention with faces. She thanked Agent Vasquez with the setting up of her apartment and awkwardly joked that now they were even. 

As the team left, J’onn continued. “You will remain under house arrest for the foreseeable future. We having a tracking device to ensure that you stay within your building.

Kara quickly turned on him. “I don’t even get a thank you from you! I saved all of them – your best team!” She pointed to the door that the team had left through. “I can help if you’d just let me.”

“Nothing says covert operation like a blonde woman flying around the city.” J’onn picked up a pile of documents and turned to leave the room. “You want to help? Go back to being invisible. The last thing we need is another flying alien.”

“That’s not fair! I gave up my life, I gave up everything! I gave up  _ her _ !” She felt Alex grab her arm, trying to get her outburst to stop. “And that is the only reason why you were able to stop the Alstairans!”

J’onn froze and Alex forced Kara to face her. 

“You knew the species?”

Kara looked surprised at the information that came out of her own mouth. She knew she had recognized the language back in Metropolis but she had not been able to pinpoint exactly what it was. Her brain seemed to only now make the connection. 

“Yes. They are Alstairans, from the Antares system.”

Alex looked at J’onn. “See. She can help. She can do this.”

“We already knew the species because of Lillian Luthor.” He was still denying her the opportunity but his face had softened and his eyes narrowed at her like he was studying her potential.

“But Kara knows so much about the other planets and species of this galaxy. More than we know and more than anyone else on Earth could know, even Superman. She should be brought in as a consultant, at least.”

He opened one of the files in his hand and held it out to Kara. “What is this?”

Paper clipped on the very top of the file was a picture of a yellowish orange spike. It looked covered in a sticky substance. One end of the spike was streaked with blood like it had been used to stab someone. 

“It’s a Hellgrammite quill,” she said. She remembered her mother had had particular troubles with a Hellgrammite once. She remembered the special testimony box her father had built to keep Krypton’s high court safe from the quills that the Hellgrammites would shoot at their foes. They could shoot these quills and had incredible strength. “Are you looking for a Hellgrammite?”

“We are now.” He took the folder from Kara and handed it to Alex as he brushed past them on his way to the door. “Get your team on this ASAP.”

Alex nodded and took the folder from him. “What about Kara?”

J’onn stopped, keeping his back to them both. His shoulders slumped as he let out a defeated sigh. “Have Agent Schott give her minimal access to our alien database.” His next instructions were directed at Kara. “See what information we are missing. Once you are finished with that we’ll...we’ll work out something.”

As J’onn rounded the corner out of the room, Alex bumped into Kara’s shoulder and let out a laugh. “Welcome aboard, Consultant Danvers."   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I read and edit these myself so all errors and typos are my own.
> 
> Come yell at me on tumblr: @nevertobeships


	5. Chapter 5

“Good morning,” Kara said as she opened the door for Winn.

“I brought breakfast! And I made sure to get extra,” he lowered his voice suspiciously even though he had now entered her apartment and they were out of earshot from anyone that could have possibly been listening, “since you’re an alien.”

She rolled her eyes and snatched the bag from his hands, eager for the sticky buns she knew were inside that he brought her from a cafe near CatCo, where he was stationed for some undercover work by the DEO. He was a nice addition to her life. He was nerdy and funny, and they got along great. With her knowledge about the other planets and species in this galaxy and Winn’s quick translation of her knowledge into the DEO’s mainframe, they had managed to add information to almost eighty-five percent of the DEO’s incomplete files in a week. They made a good team. His fueling her newly formed addiction to sticky buns was just an added bonus to their partnership.

“Thanks for the breakfast. I guess that makes you,” she mimicked his paranoia playfully and lowered her voice as well, “a nice human.”

“How’s the writing coming along?” he asked as he moved a legal pad off the counter so he could set down the two coffees he had also brought, dropping the duffle bag that was slung over his shoulder onto the floor. He had accidently stumbled across one of her half written articles about alien rights a few days earlier and was quick to encourage her to keep writing even though she claimed it was pointless and would never go anywhere. “Like I said the other day, if you get something finalized then I’ll submit it anonymously to CatCo. Cat Grant would love this stuff.”

“I actually did finish a piece up.” She picked up a print-out and handed it to him before she upacked her breakfast.

The article was about how the sudden push to pass anti-alien legislation was misguided, especially without the input of those aliens already living on Earth and amongst the human population. So many aliens had already integrated themselves into a human way of life that at this point being targeted for such a life was cruel and unjust. Unfortunately, alien individuals often kept to themselves or hid their true identities and therefore did not want to risk coming out to champion for their own rights.

Winn read it enthusiastically, humming in agreement at several of her points. “Kara, this is really good. And this point of view needs to be out there. We need a voice of reason for the alien population, someone who will stand up for them and give the world their perspective. This really needs to be published. Would you be okay if I submitted it?”

She pushed her glasses up her nose awkwardly. “If you think it’s good enough...”

“I do! I especially like how you signed it off: ‘When there is darkness and hatred we must protect each other. Stand strong and stand together. Hope.’ It’s almost like you are signing off with hope, like that is your alias name. _You_ are hope.”

She smiled. “I like that. Maybe that can be my pen name.”

“Is the original on the computer?”

“Yeah, it’s saved on– wait, don’t open that!”

He had slid her laptop towards him and opened it. It was an innocent gesture; he was merely going to submit the article for her. He stopped at her exclamation but it was too late. He had seen what she had been looking at before she had last shut it. The screen showed a news article from the Daily Planet where the headline detailed how the young interim CEO of LuthorCorp had pulled off a major merger with a company called Virtue Crest Corporation. The merge of the Luthor family business and the Dexus family business was a hot issue in the corporate world.

He grimaced. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

“No, it’s fine. Just please don’t tell Alex or J’onn.”

“I won’t.” He crossed himself as a show of promise. “But...you’re not planning on doing anything, are you? You know you can’t get near her...”

“I’m just keeping an eye on her.” The picture of Lena below the headline made her stomach knot. It was an older picture, one from Lena’s early days at MIT. Kara’s heart fluttered and a sad smile ghosted her lips at the sight of Lena’s smiling face. How was it possible to miss someone so much? She flopped onto one of the bar stools, mad at herself but for what, she did not know. The only person she could really be mad at was herself for her choice, but that choice had been the right one she constantly reminded herself. “Do you know anything about VCC and the Dexus family?”

Winn’s eyes were still suspicious as he looked her over and took a seat next to her. He nodded nonetheless as he downloaded a program on to her computer that he designed that would allow her to send anonymous emails. After running the program and submitting her article to CatCo’s journalist pool, he brought the Daily Planet article back onto the screen and explained what he knew. “VCC builds spaceships. Most parts of the American ones, anyway. I’m sure they contract out some of the work but I bet they’ll be exclusively built by LuthorCorp with this merger now. The Dexus family created and owned VCC. They are one of the wealthiest families in National City. That’s why it is such a big deal that LuthorCorp and VCC are joining forces. Now two of the richest and most influential families are essentially under one roof.”

“LuthorCorp hasn’t had any interest in space travel since Lex. I wonder if the new attacks are behind this.”

“I don’t think so. A merger this big would take a long time. It had to be in the works before the first attack in Metropolis. That’s why J’onn is disappointed about you and Lena not being together anymore.”

The cup of coffee in Kara’s hand exploded as she squeezed it too hard. “Wait what?!”

“I mean...crap!” He jumped up with the laptop to get it out of the way of the coffee spill, and to distance himself from her angry tone.

“Was the DEO using my relationship to keep tabs on LuthorCorp?!”

He sighed and hung his head. There was no point trying to cover up his accidental reveal. “Yes.”

“And Lena? Do you all really think that she has anything to do with Cadmus if you think LuthorCorp essentially is Cadmus?”

“Our intel says she most likely doesn’t know anything about it. She was in Europe when Cadmus turned against the DEO and Lionel died. Hell, Kara, most people don’t know that the DEO and Cadmus even exist. You are a rare civilian exception to that. I really don’t think she knows.”

“So let me get this straight: I wasn’t allowed to follow in the footsteps of Kal and become a hero or work for the DEO but when my personal life, my personal love life, benefited the government they didn’t mind keeping tabs on me? Or letting me make that deal with Lillian to help themselves?”

“I can’t speak to why they and your cousin thought to keep your Kryptonian side a secret. You know that I’m all about the superhero stuff so I don’t really agree with it all. And I can’t imagine what this must be like for you about Lena. Giving up the woman you love...I don’t know if I could’ve made the same choice. I’d like to think I could’ve, to save the world and all, but I don’t know.” He grimaced again and returned to the kitchen island. “But you did make this choice. And that choice saved so many people and maybe even the world. You wanted to be a hero and you made the hero’s choice. That’s not on the DEO.”

Kara pursed her lips. She was angry. No, she was furious. And her grief was eating her alive no matter how hard she tried to bury it. “I still should have been told about being used to keep an eye on LuthorCorp through Lena and I’s relationship, and about what happened between the DEO and Cadmus.”

“ _We_ don’t even really know what happened on that space station that night. But you are right. The DEO has used you and it’s not fair. Speaking of LuthorCorp and not fair...” He nodded at her television that was on one of the national news outlets, “What’s that all about?”

She snatched the remote and turned up the volume.

 _“Lawmakers are now looking to scientists on how to identify the alien species that live among us in order to understand and regulate alien presences here on Earth. Several corporations and research institutions are working on the development of technology that would allow us to identify our alien members. Sources tell us that LuthorCorp has secured a governmental contract for such a device_ –”

Kara muted the television again so harshly that she felt the remote crack in her hands. “It’s so frustrating! ‘Understand’. They don’t want to understand anything about us. Everyone loves to accept the help of my cousin when they need it but don’t give any thought to the fact that he is an alien.”

“Yeah, but most people think Superman is just Superman. No one knows he is Clark Kent and that he is living a human life too. People are more worried about the aliens that could potentially be living next door, not Superman.”

Lillian Luthor knew, and that fact had been eating at Kara’s brain ever since Lillian had used it as a threat back at the hospital in Metropolis. “So because he’s a hero he deserves more rights than other aliens?”

Winn put his hands up in defeat. There was no real rationality behind it but when were humans ever really rational?

“I’ve been trying to keep a close eye on the political situation but watching it all makes me so angry. I could be out there with Kal showing the world that they don’t have to fear us. And then if I watch any of the local news I see all the awful things happening out there in the city–” she paused, unsure of how to put her feelings into words without letting her emotions get the best of her. “I could be doing something about them. I could’ve been helping all those people. Instead I’m sitting here in this apartment filling in a database with you...no offense.”

There had been two robberies that resulted in several serious injuries and a massive pile up on the interstate where a man died because the ambulance could not get to him quick enough. She blamed herself for it all. In each case she had stood by and let it happen, remaining obedient to the DEO. In the end, her lack of action had cost a man his life.

The remote finally split in her hand as she fought down another wave of rage.

“I’m going to be honest,” Winn said as he picked up his duffle bag off the floor and placed it on the island in front of her, “I for sure thought you were going to intervene in that robbery that was close by. Since it was in your designated radius and all.”

“Alex and J’onn would have figured out a way to kill me if I had. I’m still on thin ice about the plane so I didn’t want to push my luck.” She rubbed her temples. Having these separate pulls, to help people but to obey orders and keep herself out of trouble, was tearing her apart. This new struggle, coupled with her still raging war about Lena, was nearly too much. The emotions she was trying to quell felt like they would boil over at any moment. “I could be doing something! There is no reason for those people to have suffered and even died!”

“You won’t have to be under house arrest forever.”

“Yeah, but I’ll still never be able to help like my cousin. They’ll never let me. _He’ll_ never let me. Don’t you get it? I’m here for the DEO’s use,” she scoffed. “I can’t believe I’m just realizing how I’ve been under their control this entire time.”

“You know, your cousin wasn’t accepted at first and I’m sure if you guys just talked he’d understand what you are going through. It took quite a few saves and negotiations for the government to quit pestering him and let him do his superhero thing. Just give it some time and I’m sure you’ll be up in the air before you know it.” He clapped his hand on her shoulder. “But speaking of being a superhero, I made you something for when you do get out of house arrest but you can’t tell your sister or J’onn, okay? They’ll kill me if they find out.” He pushed the duffle bag closer to her, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

She narrowed her eyes at him. He was terrified of Alex, in a respectful way, of course. She had been quick to pick up on that in the short time she had known him and seen him and Alex interact. She found it extremely suspicious that he would do something that would not gain Alex’s approval.

“I won’t–” Her gasp filled the rest of her sentence as she pulled out a red cape followed by a blue top, her family’s crest spread across it. “Winn!”

He laughed at her astonishment. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and get you one made. This way you don’t have to worry about saving people and hoping they don’t recognize you. I need you to try it on so I can make size adjustments though.”

She took the top from him and ran her fingers softly over the crest. It was just like Kal’s suit. Holding it in her hands she felt closer to her family and Krypton. Her heart felt full and a sparkle of happiness leaked through her rage and grief, but the realization that Alex and J’onn would never let her out in it quickly dampened those good spirits.

Winn saw this change, how her shoulders slumped and how she chewed on her tongue in disappointment, and became worried. “Did I mess it up? I swear it’s just like your cousin’s.”

“No, no, no. It’s perfect. It’s just...They’re are never going to let me wear it or go out there as a hero. Haven’t you been listening to me? They control everything I do. It’ll never happen.” She put the suit back into the duffle bag and put her hand up to stop him from starting his reassurances. “I know you say there is a chance but there’s not. I promised Kal I wouldn’t ever reveal myself and I promised Lillian that I would stay out of Lena’s life. Kara Zor-El stopped existing a long time ago and Kara Danvers died in the attack in Metropolis. _I_ don’t exist anymore and I’ll never be able to be out there like this. I’m just...no one.”

“Kara Danvers doesn’t exist anymore but we can bring back Kara Zor-El! No one on Earth other than your family and the DEO even knows about you in that way. It’s basically like a fresh start just with the old you.” He squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. “And plus you have like identity inception going on! Kara Danvers had dark hair, didn’t wear glasses but Kara Zor-El now has blonde hair, and you’ve been wearing the glasses. That right there and staying away from Lena keeps you in compliance with Lillian Luthor. No one will ever know that Kara Zor-El was Kara Danvers...or that Kara Danvers was Kara Zor-El...?” He looked up at the ceiling and made gestures with his hands like he was trying to figure out a complex puzzle.

She could not help smile as he rambled. It felt so good to finally have someone on her side.

“And now you have the suit so that keeps civilian Kara Zor-El different than hero Kara Zor-El!” he kept on. “You having a hero identity puts you one more disguise from the Luthors. Again, identity inception. Pretty cool if I say so myself.”

She laughed at his boyish optimism. “Alex and J’onn still aren’t going to go for this,” she repeated despite the feeling of hope and possibilities growing again within her at his insistence that she would be a superhero too before long.

“They aren’t the boss of us!” He waved her off dismissively and she could not help another round of laughter when he suddenly got serious again. “Don’t tell your sister I said that, though.”

“Thank you, Winn. I really do appreciate it.”

He looked at her expectantly and then scooted the duffle bag back towards her.

It took everything for her not to flash change right there in front of him from her excitement. Once in the bathroom, she hurriedly put it on and admired herself in the mirror. The crest felt good across her chest. It had been so long since she had worn it. She remembered how she had howled, cried, and begged Eliza not to throw out the white shirt with her family’s crest on the front that she had been wearing the day she came to Earth when it became too small for her. Eliza had felt awful for not realizing how attached Kara was to the shirt as it was the only thing she had with her family’s crest on it from Krypton. The next day, Eliza had bought a shadow box that they memorialized the shirt in it and hung it on her bedroom wall. She remembered how she used to take it out of the box and trace the symbol as she did now with it on the suit.

“How’s it fit?” Winn asked from outside the bathroom. “Did you find the zipper?”

She opened the door in response, bowing her head a bit in embarrassment because she could not control her smile.

“It looks great!” He did a little jump. “Looks like I need to take the skirt in just a bit but otherwise it’s good.”

“I wish I could practice flying,” she said as she looked past him into the bright November sunlight through the windows. “I thought I was never going to remember how to get off the ground when I saved your plane.”

He did a slow circle around her, checking seams and fit as he went. “I can’t help you get off the ground but the cape should help stabilize you once you’re in the air.”

She pulled the cape around her like a blanket. It was light and soft but she knew that if it was anything like Kal’s that it was strong and would protect her as well as help her fly. “Do you think maybe...maybe you could take me out to practice sometime?”

“Well, you are logged to work with me all day and we have already made more progress in the database than anyone expected...” His mischievous grin was back.

“Is that a yes?!”

“Just promise me you’ll protect me from your sister if she finds out.”

She jumped up and clapped her hands together. Finally something good was happening in her life. “Thank you! Thank you!”

“I’ll call it in that we are leaving the apartment. We need to swing by CatCo first and then I think I know a spot where you can practice without the fear of being seen by anyone. We’ll need a cover story too because you know Alex is going to check the logs and wonder why I called to pull you out of your designated area.”

She nodded and smiled in defiance.

************************************************************************************

“So what is it that you exactly do at CatCo?” Kara asked as she stopped on the front steps of CatCo’s building and peered up to its top. It dominated National City’s skyline aside from the construction cranes that were stacking up two new skyscrapers.

“I work as a part-time IT consultant,” he answered as ushered her into the building and then led her across the lobby to the bank of elevators. He pressed the button for their desired floor and continued as the doors shut. “Mainly I am here to keep an eye out for any fresh stories that CatCo may get wind of before the DEO does. My consultant status gives me access to CatCo’s servers and pretty much anywhere I need to get to in the building but it also let’s me work odd hours since I’m pulling double duty at the DEO.”

The elevator door open to a chaotic scene. The top floor of CatCo was in absolute disarray. Personal assistants and secretaries were running about, the phones were ringing nonstop. A short blonde woman ran into another woman who was carrying a stack of layouts. The collision caused the documents each were carrying to spill down to the floor in a messy heap that a man carrying his own stack pictures had to jump over to continue on his rushed path.

“What’s going on?” Kara stopped suddenly after two steps afraid to get in anyone’s way as people pushed and pressed by her in the foyer.

Winn looked thoroughly confused as well. “I don’t know. Come on.” He grabbed the strap of the duffle bag that was over her shoulder and contained her suit, and pulled her through the chaos to his desk.

“Who wrote it?!” Cat Grant stood in her office doorway, waving a document as she shouted out across the bullpen. “If I don’t have a real name in two seconds you all can start packing your things! First you people can’t get me a clean image of the girl who saved the plane and now your incompetencies are spreading to other stories!”

“But what if ‘Hope’ is the person’s real name?” one of the journalists asked. He cowered the second his last word breached the air and caught Ms. Grant’s reaction of pure annoyance.

“‘Hope’ is what the person is writing about! It’s a pen name,” she hissed. Her eyes then fell on Winn and narrowed into a direct threat. “You! IT boy, come here!”

Winn gave an audible whine and pushed Kara down into his desk chair. “Just sit right here and I’ll be back...if I survive.”

Kara watched as he hung his head and followed Ms. Grant into her office. Everyone in the bullpen visibly relaxed now that their boss had focused on a single employee that was not them. Ms. Grant began waving the document at Winn, her voice muted by the glass doors. Kara looked around out of paranoia and then focused her hearing on Winn and Ms. Grant.

“...it just showed up in...in...whoever that one person’s name is...in their inbox. I need you to trace it!”

“Was it bad? Why do you need to know who sent it?” He looked over his shoulder at Kara and bulged his eyes out.

 _Oh Rao. It’s my article and they think it’s awful_ , she thought.

“Because!” Ms. Grant tore her glasses off her face. “This article is exactly what we need! I can’t get anyone around here to give me content like this and I need more of it!”

Kara smiled and then bit her lip as she looked around in shy embarrassment, forgetting that no one else around her could hear the conversation nor knew that it was her work.

“You better find me this person! Now out!”

Winn stumbled out of Ms. Grant’s office, shrinking away from the swing at him she took with the mysterious article in her hand.

“Was that really my article?” Kara whispered as he approached his desk.

Winn furiously nodded his head. “I told you it was good!”

“Are you going to tell her it’s me?”

“No! Your sister would kill me and you if she found out about this!”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to pretend to try and find the source, _you_ , and then...uh...hope she doesn’t kill me when I tell her it can’t be traced. You might have to protect me from Ms. Grant.”

She rose of out his chair and perched on the edge of his desk so that he could take his seat. “Anyone else? First Alex and now Ms. Grant? What am I? Your personal bodyguard?”

“Hey, I made you the suit and I’m taking you flying right after I get done with this.” His rapid tapping on his keyboard added to the frenzied cacophony of the bullpen. “I think you owe me a little protection.”

************************************************************************************

A half an hour later, they were back on the street in front of CatCo. As predicted, Ms. Grant gave Winn a verbal lashing unlike anything Kara had ever heard when he told her he could not trace the source of the article. She felt bad that he had to take the abuse but it made her chest swell with pride that Ms. Grant thought so highly of her work. As her and Winn made their way to the parking garage where his car was located, she felt a new sense motivation. If she could convince the DEO and Kal to let her help, let her be a hero, if she could find some way to return to her previous human life and become the journalist she always wanted to be, if she could get Lena back...she was juggling so many wants and desires she was unsure of how long she could keep the balls in the air. _Hope. You can’t preach about hope and not have any of your own_ , she chastised herself.

A cold chill rushed down her spine. Her body tingled and she shook herself to alleviate the feeling. Something was not right. She slowed her steps, finally coming to a stop on the sidewalk as she looked behind her and then down the alleyway between CatCo and the parking garage. Winn had kept walking, going on about Ms. Grant and the article. He stopped a hundred feet from her when he finally realized she was not alongside him.

“Kara?”

“Winn–”

The ground beneath them began to shake and rumble. A hollow thunder rolled towards them as people began to shriek in realization of what was happening.

“Earthquake!” he shouted.

The sound of cracking concrete and shattering glass joined the screams of the other pedestrians on the sidewalk. Everyone was running in different directions, not sure of where it would be best to take cover. The façades of some of the smaller and older buildings began to crumble and Kara looked up, fearful of the skyscrapers around them.

The loud reverberating snap of metal cables tore her attention to the construction site across the street. One of the construction cranes was waving back and forth fiercely. Kara focused her eyes at its base and saw that its concrete pad had cracked and the anchor bolts once keeping it in place were jostling in rhythm with the ground’s tremors.

“Winn, that crane is going to fall!”

An unpleasant tear of metal rang out along with her words as the crane teetered forward, headed right for CatCo’s building.

“The suit! Kara, the suit!”

She looked at him quizzically before realizing what he was trying to say. She pulled the duffle bag off her shoulder and flash-changed into the suit. With one last glance at Winn, she tossed him her glasses and stepped out onto the street just as the last bolt at the foot of the crane broke and it toppled faster toward CatCo. Screams from CatCo’s offices as well as from the ground filled the air over the rolling thunder.

Without thinking, she jumped into the air and felt her cape steady her. This time she had no trouble getting off the ground. This time it felt as easy as breathing. The air rushed by her face and through her hair as she willed herself higher. Her palms met the falling crane and, although she braced herself for its great weight, it felt like nothing in her hands.

The air went still and silent, and the echoing rumble faded as the earthquake finished its toll on the city. The only sounds now were the sirens of the emergency vehicles and the fluttering of her cape in the wind. With the crane’s progress halted, she realized she had no idea what do with it now that she had caught it. She tried to push it back to its original position but knew it wouldn’t stay there. If only she could somehow hold the crane up and be at its base to use her heat vision to sear its foundation back together.

She looked down at the street below her. Maybe she could instead lay it down across the street and into the alleyway where her and Winn had been at the start of this. She didn’t see any other way to do this by herself.

“Help! Please! Someone help!”

She twisted back to the construction site. A construction worker was dangling from one of the upper story beams that had partially broken off the structure. She could see his arms shaking as he tried desperately to hang on to the beam.

 _Crap. How am I going to do this?_ Her instincts gave her the answer and she rolled her eyes. _This better work_ , she thought.

She spun up around the crane, positioning herself above it. Her muscles strained as she pulled it back into its original position. With the crane upright now, she let it go and swooped down to the man, grabbing him around the middle and pulling him from the dangling beam. Bursting through the air she flew them over the street and away from the broken and unstable structure.

Screams filled the air again as the crane started its descent back toward CatCo. This time, however, it was falling faster. She turned in the air and put her free arm out to catch it once more. It was a much more difficult feat holding it up with one arm and a man clinging to her other side. She looked down and saw that Ms. Grant’s balcony was not too far below them.

“I’m going to need you to slide down my arm onto that balcony, okay?”

The man looked for himself, blanched, but nodded his approval of the plan.

“I think I can get you a little lower but you’ll still have to jump.” She slowly lowered them and the crane, trying to be mindful of the crane and its close proximity to the top of CatCo’s building.

Voices came from beneath them and she looked down to see several CatCo employees, Ms. Grant included, now standing on the balcony gawking at the scene above them. When they realized what she was trying to do with the man they all cleared a path and encouraged the man to make a jump for it.

“I’m going to swing you a bit and when I say let go, you let go,” she instructed.

The man nodded again and slowly released his grip on her as he shimmied himself down her body until she was only holding him up by his hand. She gave him two small swings and then screamed ‘now!’ as she released him. He did as he was told and let go, falling the several feet to the balcony and the outstretched arms of the CatCo employees.

With the man now safe, pushed the crane back away from the building. She slowly twisted it and then guided it down into the alleyway between CatCo and the parking garage. It settled on the ground with a hollow thud, and only then did she take a deep breath in relief.

“You did it!” Winn came running down the alleyway towards her. “You did it! You saved that man and the crane!” He high-fived her and then started jumping up and down.

She laughed at him but felt her cheeks blush at his excitement over her deed. She had done it and basked in the feeling of being heroic again for the second time in her life.

“I’m going to go check on that construction worker. I’ll meet you back here in just a second.”

She blasted up, out of the alleyway and leisurely rounded the building. As her face appeared over the balcony, she was not greeted by the man nor the CatCo employees. Instead, Cat Grant, her arms crossed and a smirk playing on her face, was the only person on the balcony.  

“And who might you be?” Ms. Grant asked.

Kara gulped and debated on flying away to avoid the direct stare from Ms. Grant, one she was sure could read her soul. “I’m...I’m no one.”

“Thank you for saving my precious building, No One. And that man.”

Kara felt her blush return and hung her head to hide her smile. “You’re welcome, Ms. Grant.”

Cat sighed irritably. “I guess if you don’t have a name I’ll just have to give one to you. Are you related to Superman? Perhaps a sister? Maybe a girlfriend?” she asked, pointing to the House of El crest.

Kara scrunched up her face in disgust. “Cousin.”

“I see. Are you new to National City? If so, where are you from? Why are you just now stepping out into the public?” Ms. Grant raised her phone and snapped a picture of the hovering hero and then continued, “Why don’t you come over that rail and let me do an interview? An hour tops, I promise.”

“Oh no...I can’t do that. I...I should be getting home...”

“And where would ‘home’ be?”

“Good day, Ms. Grant.” Kara laughed at Ms. Grant’s tenacity but somehow managed to keep up her resistance.

“Wait! At least answer me this one thing: did you save the plane last week?”

Kara bit her lip. What would be the harm in admitting that? “I did.”

“National City finally has its own hero. Well, welcome.” Ms. Grant turned from the balcony but then looked over her shoulder as she walked back into her office. “I will get that interview from you.”

Kara let herself sink back to street level, not sure if Ms. Grant’s last words were merely hopeful or were threatening. She turned into the alleyway and the sight that greeted her made her feel like she had sunk all the way to the Earth’s core. Several DEO jeeps lined the alleyway and J’onn was perched on the crane, waiting for her return. Alex and Vasquez were standing alongside CatCo’s building with Winn who was seated on the ground with her pile of clothes and the duffle bag.

J’onn rose from the crane and motioned her forward. “It seems you have a knack for not listening to my instructions.”

************************************************************************************

“No more apartment, no more being out in public. You are going to stay here at the DEO compound until you can learn to obey orders!”

The car ride to the DEO had been nothing but tempered silence between J’onn, Alex, and Kara after the save. The moment they were in the director’s conference room, however, it all burst out. J’onn was shaking with anger at her actions and her suit. The House of El crest displayed prominently across the front of it just seemed to make him angrier. But Kara had had enough and with every yell he lobbed at her she spat back her own side of things.

“I am not some prisoner! You can’t keep me here!”

“I’m going to until you learn your place in the scheme of things!”

“And what is my place? You won’t let me be a regular human, I can’t be Kryptonian. I can’t be a hero, I can’t be a journalist. What do you want me to be?!”

Alex came in between them both, her hands on each of their chests as she tried to gain some sort of control. “J’onn, you can’t keep her here.”

“She is staying here,” he insisted.

Kara threw her hands up and walked away from them.

“You are a liability. You cannot be out there as this,” he gestured to her suit, “or as Kara Danvers. That is the deal you made.”

Kara rounded on him, a faint orange glow in her eyes as her anger boiled and started to trigger her powers. “I made a deal to keep my alien identity a secret when I was thirteen years old! I had just lost everything I ever had and then found out that the duty set out to me by my mother couldn’t be done because I got stuck in the Phantom Zone! I barely spoke English and had no idea what was going on! And you insist on keeping me in the dark about everything even now! I’m not a child!”

“We did what we thought would keep you safe!” Alex grabbed her shoulders but was quick to stay out of her line of sight in case her heat vision fully triggered.

“Safe from what?!” she screamed back. “It was my destiny to protect Kal and this world!”

“Lex Luthor had just started his hostile takeover of Metropolis. We couldn’t risk him finding out that you existed!” Alex tightened her grip and tried to reason with her. “It was the only way we knew how to keep you out of it all.”

Kara’s breathing was heavy but her eyes began to return to normal. “Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place?”

“And scare you even more than you already were about being on a new planet? You just said so yourself, you had lost everything. We didn’t want that extra burden on you.” Alex’s eyes were soft and she tried to make Kara understand with just a simple look. “Sweetheart...”

“Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me,” Kara replied roughly. She swatted Alex’s hand away and distanced herself further from the other two. “Is that why Mom and Dad adopted me? To keep me under the surveillance of the DEO?” Her lip trembled as she started to question everything about her life here on Earth. She felt like she was losing her grip on everything she thought she knew. “None of you wanted me. I was just something for you to hide.”

Alex groaned. “No, they wanted you! They were devastated when they couldn’t have another kid after me. You were wanted! It was just...convenient...”

Kara scoffed and shook her head. “What about Lena? Why didn’t you tell me about Lena and the Luthors when her and I first started dating? Why can’t you be honest with me even now?”

Alex looked to J’onn for the explanation. It had been his decision to not tell Kara about Lena, although Alex and Eliza had agreed to it. But he didn’t offer any explanation. He merely questioned her back. “And what would you have done if we told you?”

“I would have gotten her out of there! If you think Lillian is so bad then I would I have gotten Lena away from her. But you decided instead to keep me in the dark and now she’s stuck there, alone.” Her voice cracked as her eyes watered.

“Then we would have lost a valuable inside source into LuthorCorp. Lena was our potential way in since we believed she had nothing to do with Cadmus given her young age and being in Europe during Lex’s reign. But she is a Luthor after all and you two dating was the perfect opportunity to track not only Lillian but also Lena in the case that she was involved–”

“You used me!” Kara hissed.

“Sir?” Vasquez entered the room and handed him a tablet with a live news feed playing. “I think you should see this.”

_“Cat Grant has dubbed this mysterious hero as Supergirl. A source of Grant’s has confirmed to the media mogul that Supergirl was the woman who prevented last week’s plane crash and that she is Superman’s cousin.”_

“Dammit! This is why you were to stay hidden!” J’onn roared as he threw the tablet on to the table. “Now the city is going to expect a hero and when you don’t show up they’ll blame you and your cousin.”

“Then I’ll show up! You are done controlling me and using me!”

“And put yourself in the limelight where any of the Luthors might recognize you? I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you dare loop Lena in with her mother and brother, and Cadmus! She has nothing to do with it!”

“That doesn’t matter right now. All it takes is one person recognizing you and Lillian Luthor finding out–”

_“This just in: a massive fire has broken out in the eastern section of downtown National City where the earthquake damage was the highest...”_

They all looked down to the tablet and watched as scenes of the fire played across it. Fire crews were scattered and the scene was chaotic. Then the camera focused on one fire truck that had been cut off from the rest of the brigade and was now surrounded by flames.

Kara walked to the door but stopped with her hand on door’s handle. “It’s your call, J’onn. Let those people die or let me do what I was meant to do.”

J’onn crossed his arms and evaluated her. After a moment he sighed and shook his head. “You are to report back here when you’ve finished. We’re not done with this conversation.”

************************************************************************************

“Do you ever stop working?”

Lena looked up from her desk at the unexpected voice. Emily Dexus was holding the office door open. She had not fully entered the room out of obvious hesitation about disturbing the future CEO. Lena stopped her typing and smiled at the friendly face. They had met a month before when the merger of LuthorCorp and VCC was finalized. Emily had been thrilled that Lena had insisted she stay on to help lead the VCC labs and production at the new National City branch, and the two had gotten along well though their time together had been short and strictly professional. Lena found a bit of relief in Emily who also was a young woman trying to lead a business in a male-dominated world. It felt nice to have someone around who could sympathize with her situation.

“What else is there to do other than work?” Lena quipped as she leaned back from her work. She motioned to the chairs in front of her desk and Emily happily took one.

“I guess that makes sense.” Emily tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder as she crossed her legs and made herself comfortable. “You are about to become the most powerful woman in the world when you become CEO. Well, except for Supergirl, of course.” She gestured to the muted television up on the wall that showed footage of a blonde woman in a red cape streaking across a skyline.

“Supergirl?” Lena asked in confusion.

Emily’s laugh filled the space. It was soft and pleasant, a nice change from the monotonous noise of the LuthorCorp offices. Her smile made her green eyes attractively crinkle. “You really don’t get out of here that often, do you?”

Lena felt her own smile blossom. Emily’s own happiness and good nature was contagious, and if Lena was not mistaken the tease about her work habits felt flirtatious. “Not really, no.”

“Supergirl is Superman’s cousin. She had a big coming out in National City about a month ago after that earthquake.”

“Great,” Lena rolled her eyes and then focused on the muted television. The newscaster appeared on the screen, the house crest of the Supers dominating the corner of the frame. “Just what we need, another red-caped hero flying about.”

“You’re a Luthor alright,” Emily playfully scoffed. It didn’t sound like an accusation but rather admiration.

Lena’s smile was sheepish but proud at the same time. “Unlike my brother and mother I don’t wish them ill. But playing wannabe hero like her cousin who let hundreds of people die is not impressive.”

“How about dinner?”

Lena double blinked at this quick change in the conversation. “Excuse me?”

“You said you’re not like your brother and mother...so who are you? May I get to know Lena Luthor over dinner?”

“I have a lot to do here.” Lena gestured to the files on her desk. She could feel a slight blush creeping over her cheeks and was surprised by that reaction. She had not really felt anything other than grief and stress since the accident but Emily’s presence was relaxing. This positive reaction felt foreign but good.

“Come on, it won’t take more than a couple hours. You could use the break from your office and we can talk business over a nice bottle of wine if you’d rather continue to be mysterious.”

 _A two hour break would not hurt, especially one with a friendly and beautiful face_ , Lena thought. “We might need two bottles of wine,” she said as she looked at the mountain of work on her desk and then back to Emily’s inviting smile.

Emily laughed again. “Done.”

Lena pulled her purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk and slipped it over her shoulder. She stopped after two steps at the sight of Emily’s playful eyes and smirk. “What?”

“You do have a coat, don’t you?” Emily bit her bottom lip and pointed over Lena’s shoulder out the window.

Lena turned to find snowing swirling about downtown Metropolis. She grimaced and blushed further at her lack of awareness of the world around her. “Right. I’ll get my coat.”

“I’m excited to experience a white christmas for the first time,” Emily bubbled as she waited for Lena to get her coat. “We don’t get snow in National City.”

 _It’s already Christmas?_ Lena groaned to herself. She looked around the room and noticed the miniature Christmas tree on the side table and the wreath on her door. Jess must have decorated and she had been too busy to even notice. Her and Kara were supposed to be in Europe right now. _Don’t. Don’t think about that,_ she told herself as a lump formed in her throat. _Don’t think about how you should be in her arms in some Parisian hotel._

“Lena?”

Lena snapped her head up and she quickly wiped at her eyes. “Yes? Sorry, did you say something?”

Emily gave her a curious look but let it go. “I asked if you are ready to spend New Year’s Eve with my family on the beach? National City will be a big turn around for you from Metropolis.”

“That sounds...” She couldn’t picture it. All she saw were blue eyes and soft smiles that would never exist again. “It sounds great.”

************************************************************************************

“Please tell me you have good news,” Lillian said into the phone. She had been waiting in her office for the call all evening.

“I do. We’ll be out for a couple hours. I hope that gives you enough time,” Emily whispered on her end. She watched Lena over her shoulder as she checked her coat and greeted the maitre'd of the restaurant.

“Excellent! I appreciate this more than you know.”

Lillian hung up the phone, a sly smile across her face. She rose from her desk, grabbing the file that had been staring at her all day. She slowly strutted down the hallway lined with shimmering holiday lights and winter florals, and with each step her smile grew wider. Everyone from this floor had left for the night and with it being Christmas week she did not expect anyone to show up this late either. Her spirits rose further at the sight of Jess’ empty desk. Jess had been the only uncertainty in this plan but she was in luck that the young secretary had decided to leave once Lena did.

Lena’s office was dimly lit, only a small lamp cast a soft glow across the white desk. There were two sets of files neatly stacked on the desk. Lena had been approving the final personnel assignments for the National City branch when Emily had convinced her to leave. The stack on the right all had Lena’s signature while the stack to the left had yet to be examined. Lillian sat as she thumbed through the stack that had already been signed, praying that the file she wanted had already been approved. Her luck seemed to continue as she found the file for the new R&D division that would be established in the National City branch. She took the file out of the pile, noting its place, and opened it. She then took out the file she had brought with her and made sure there were no glaring differences between the two other than the additional name on the R&D personnel roster. It was identical in every way but that name. With Lena's own pen, she perfectly forged her daughter’s name on the bottom of the roster. She put the forged file into the stack and returned everything to normal on the desk. She then turned the chair and looked out Lena’s windows at the blustering snow, a victorious smile playing across her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my write or die sten06 (@stennnn06) for comments on edits. You are the best!
> 
> Brace yourselves, next chapter we finally get Supergirl and Lena <3
> 
> All typos and errors are my own. 
> 
> Come yell at me @nevertobeships :)


	6. Chapter 6

The beginning of February in National City was quite chilly. Much warmer than Metropolis, which pleased Lena, but uncommonly cold according to the news and the other natives of the city. Lena looked out at her view from her new office, toward the bay though it was too dark to make out the water. The closer she stood to her massive glass wall, the more she could feel the coldness trying to seep into her warm office sanctuary. She hoped this cold streak would snap soon so she could go back to spending her evenings on her new balcony as she relished in finally being away from her mother and Metropolis, both of which caused her too many painful memories. Tonight, though, even if the weather was nice she would still need to work rather than indulge in her new habit of self-reflection, or as Jess was calling it “balcony therapy”.

Everything seemed to finally be falling into place in her life after the accident. She was officially LuthorCorp’s CEO with her birthday passing just a month prior, and the National City branch had opened at the New Year and was thus far prospering. Her board, save for Lillian, had been very accepting of her new proposals on how to further distance LuthorCorp’s image from her brother’s actions including her plan to rename the company L-Corp. And much to her surprise, her and Emily’s friendship had broken her out of her unhealthy work habits that she now realized she had been using as a crutch to help her wade through her grief rather than deal with it in a healthy manner. 

She turned from the window and evaluated the work on her desk. Her workload had not really changed. It just shifted to where she was spending less time overseeing projects to managing and delegating to the people who would lead the projects. She missed her time in the lab and her time designing and inventing. Sometimes the nights she spent on her balcony were used to keep her mind sharp when it came to product development as she sketched new designs and read up on the latest research that was coming out of not only L-Corp’s labs but the top universities in the world. 

Most of those nights on her balcony, though, were spent ruminating over what happened to Kara and what happened in the aftermath of the accident. Her mind had an unhealthy habit of triggering memories of Kara, and though she had gotten better at pushing them away rather than letting them break her down, the frequency with which it was happening was alarming. Those memories could still stop her no matter what she was doing. Just the other day, for example, she had been leading a meeting with her new lab managers. During her presentation one of the managers began spinning his pen in his hand, tapping it lightly against his notepad at the end of each spin. That was something Kara used to do when she was stuck on one of her articles. Suddenly Lena found herself back in her and Kara’s Boston apartment, Kara across the room from her. Kara was spinning her pen but then caught a glimpse of Lena watching her and this caused a big smile.  _ I love you _ , the memory of Kara said, and Lena felt her heart stutter at the words. These memories were so real, sometimes she swore that if she just reached out she would really be able to touch the Kara in front of her. She didn’t know how long she was lost in her memory before Emily was able to pull her out of it by calling her name. When Lena had refocused she found a room of a dozen very confused and worried managers looking back at her. She had played it off that she had just thought of a new product and apologized for letting her mind wander. The room had laughed, fully believing her story because they all knew she was a workaholic, and let the incident go. Everyone but Jess that was, who was sitting in the back corner taking notes. Only Jess truly knew what was going on with Lena. She was halfway out of her chair, looking very concerned at Lena’s state, when their eyes met. Lena shook her head slightly, signalling that she was fine, and Jess resumed her original position though she kept a closer eye on Lena’s demeanor as the meeting picked back up. After the meeting, when they both were back in Lena’s office, Jess had suggested again that she talk to a professional. Lena had been giving that suggestion a lot more consideration lately. She needed to confront the feelings she had bottled up for months because she knew she could not afford to let herself sink into the self-destructive pattern she had fallen into while in Metropolis, and she could not risk these memories and thoughts of Kara interfering with her life. The move to National City had done wonders for her, especially her nights on her balcony, and she hoped that this new personal progress would continue yet talking to someone would probably do her some good.

Tonight, though, she had too much work that needed to be finished by tomorrow afternoon’s press conference. Self-evaluation and coping with her previous life, whether alone on her balcony or with a therapist, would just have to wait until tomorrow night.

Sinking into her desk chair, she pulled the file that Jess had left for her closer, admiring the organized notes her secretary had made on the press conference arrangements. She debated turning on some music or putting on the television, and maybe even ordering dinner, as she closed the file and put it back, knowing she didn’t really have to double check Jess’ work. 

She had been in meetings most of the day and had not yet eaten an actual meal. The thought of food made her stomach growl and she took that as a sign of what her next action should be. She walked out to Jess’ desk and started going through the drawers in search of the menus she knew Jess had collected for them. As she found them, a phone rang and she answered it without thinking.

“Luthor,” she said distractedly, her eyes at last landing on the horde of menus in the bottom drawer. She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder as it took both hands to bring out the stack of menus.

There was a light laugh on the other end and Emily’s voice met Lena’s ears. “Dexus. Is this how we’re answering personal phone calls now?”

Lena let the menus fall to the desk and pulled the phone from her ear, confused at the sight of her own personal phone in her hand. She sighed at her lack of attention, which seemed to happen quite a bit around Emily unfortunately. Luckily for her Emily seemed to find it endearing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize which phone I answered.”

“Ah, it’s okay. I take it that means you’re still working?”

“I am. Well, not really at the moment. I’m trying to order dinner. How was your day?” She sank into Jess’ chair and thumbed through the menus in search of something that would meet her sudden cravings. 

“It was pretty good actually. I think the alien detection device is ready for testing.”

“Oh really? That is a good day. Glad to see you are enjoying projects other than spacecraft design.”

Emily chuckled. “I deserve more credit than most people, especially my father, give me. I do have three advance degrees after all. I am fully capable of thinking about other things rather than spacecraft designs.”

Lena smiled at their similarities again. Like Lena, Emily was struggling to prove her worth to a parent who did not hold belief in her. Mr. Dexus had agreed to the merger because he did not trust Emily to take over the company after his retirement. He was quite shocked when he learned that Lena had folded Emily into L-Corp’s management team and put her over not only the acquired VCC labs but also the project production by some of L-Corp’s top research teams. Emily would do well at L-Corp and Lena felt some satisfaction in Emily proving her father wrong. Hopefully she could one day do the same to Lillian.

“I will never underestimate your abilities,” Lena promised. 

“You’re too good to me, you know that?”

Lena closed her eyes and could easily imagine Emily’s smile that was so evident in the tone of that statement. She could picture Emily’s dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail and her long legs stretched out in front of her as she relaxed at home. “And you’re so patient with me.” 

It was a loaded statement. Lena bit her lip because she didn’t really mean to trigger this conversation, one they desperately needed to have with the tension that had been hanging over them the past two weeks. But it was out there now and, just like their first kiss, it couldn’t be taken back. 

_ ‘I think the one with the terrace suits you. You seem like a terrace type of person,’ Emily joked.  _

_ Lena’s laugh echoed down the hotel’s hallway as they made their way toward the suite she had leased until she could find a place of her own. Their afternoon about National City in search of the perfect new abode for Lena was one of the best days Lena had had in such a long time. She felt a new freedom here in National City and Emily’s ability to make things light-hearted and humorous was just an added bonus. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to take that. Are terrace type people good?’ _

_ ‘The best,’ Emily assured. They slowed their pace and finally stopped in front of Lena’s door. ‘Well, I guess I’ll leave you here. I’ll pick you up in the morning, eight-ish okay for you?’ _

_ Lena felt like it was a test. Emily’s body language was very obviously saying she wanted to stay but her words were giving Lena the out if she wanted it. And to be honest Lena wasn’t sure which she wanted. These feelings that Emily conjured within her were so different. Loving Kara had lit every nerve in her body on fire. There was so much passion, and everything with Kara had been intense. It had been so good, but so very intense. With Emily, though, everything was subtle like a winding, lazy river. It was just different, that was really the best way to explain it. Lena kept trying to convince herself that different didn’t mean bad.  _

_ She opened her mouth to say goodnight but her body betrayed her. Some part of her made her step into Emily’s space rather than take a step back toward the door. And Emily took the personal space intrusion as permission because her arms instantly pulled Lena tight as their mouths met, and though the kiss started out hesitantly, it quickly heated when Emily pressed them against the wall next to the door. _

_ But the sudden thought of Kara intruded Lena’s mind and she tore her mouth from Emily’s. ‘Wait...wait...Emily, I can’t...I can’t do this yet.’ She squeezed her eyes shut as tight as she could, trying to fight of the feeling of Kara’s lips and Kara’s arms around her. For a brief moment her brain convinced her that Kara was alive and what she was doing was wrong.  _

_ Emily immediately let Lena go and took a step back though they were still awfully close together. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rush _ – _ ’ _

_ ‘No, no, no it’s me. I’m the one who should be sorry.’ Lena felt tears start to form in her eyes and she bowed her head forward, resting her forehead on Emily’s shoulder as she took a deep breath.  _

_ Emily’s arms circled her once more, but this time there was no heat, only comfort.  _

_ ‘You don’t have anything to be sorry for. There is no timeline here, no need to hurry,’ Emily whispered. _

_ Lena raised her head and finally met Emily’s eyes. They were so kind and soft, and they made Lena feel relaxed. Whatever was happening between them was nowhere near the level of what she had with Kara but there was so much potential here. Emily made her happy and that was all she was looking for  _ – _ to be happy again. She had to learn to let Kara go.  _

_ Emily softly smiled as she cupped Lena’s face and wiped away the tear that had escaped down her cheek. ‘No need to hurry,’ she repeated.  _

_ A slight and embarrassed nod was all Lena could muster. She reached into her purse and fumbled with the side pocket in an effort to find the keycard for the door. Once she had, and the electronic beep of the door met her ears, she opened the door slightly but turned to meet Emily’s eyes again. ‘Eight-ish?’ _

_ ‘I’ll be here,’ Emily promised. And Lena knew that she meant it more than just a pick up in the morning. She knew Emily would be there for her through all of this. _

_ Lena forced a smile back at Emily as she closed the door. She felt more tears threatening to spill and was thankful that Emily had been understanding and left her to be alone. Her head thumped back against the now closed door as she looked up at the ceiling, begging the tears to stay put. But as another escaped, and she felt its cool path down her cheek she couldn’t help but let her body mimic its flow as she slid herself down the door to the floor. She pulled her knees to her chest and let out a strangled sob.  _

_ ‘I’m sorry...I’m so sorry…’ _

_ She repeated this over and over until there were no more tears and her body was too exhausted to keep up with her sobs. It was then she realized that she didn’t know who she was apologizing to: Emily or the memories of Kara that haunted her heart and mind.  _

“You’re worth the wait, Lena. I know you don’t think so but you are,” Emily said as she broke the silence that had overcome them after Lena’s confession. When Lena didn’t respond, she took that as her cue to give Lena some more space. “I’m going to let you get back to ordering dinner. Please make sure you get enough to eat and that you get plenty of sleep tonight. I’ll see you at the press conference tomorrow.”

“I will,” Lena replied to all of Emily’s statement. She didn’t deserve Emily’s kindness nor her understanding but for now she was thrilled to have her in her life. 

She sat at Jess’ desk for another ten minutes in silence after she hung up, rethinking the last few weeks, and really the almost eight months since the accident. If you had asked her a year ago how she would have handled losing Kara and taking over LuthorCorp, she would have instantly said that she couldn’t have dealt with it, that she would want any other life but one without Kara. But now there seemed to be hope and she wanted to cling to it like a life raft. Maybe she was finally moving on. Maybe she could find happiness in this life without Kara.

That thought made her mouth run dry though she knew that it was progress. It was the first time she had ever admitted to herself that she could possibly be happy without Kara. 

With a difficult gulp, she picked up the menu she had decided on and quickly ordered dinner, ordering more than she could eat so that she could put the leftovers in her refrigerator for Jess to have tomorrow. As she walked through her office, deciding not to start working until after her dinner, she opted for her balcony despite the cold while she waited for the food delivery. Though she tried to deny it, she needed its comfort because for some reason being forty-two floors above the city, nothing but the stars looking down at her, was the only thing that settled her soul. She inhaled the crisp air deeply, feeling the coldness sting her lungs and prick at her exposed skin like a needle. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck, and took another deep breath as she braced herself on the railing of the balcony. The moon had come out and that enabled her to at last see the dark waters of the bay and the various shadows of National City’s skyline. National City felt so much better to her than Metropolis. It felt younger and untainted. It was a place where anyone could have a fresh start, even a Luthor. 

Suddenly she felt like she was being watched, and she felt her body re-tense as her fight or flight response started to kick on. She quickly turned from the railing to face the far end of the balcony but found nothing suspicious there. Her eyes then swept her office where everything seemed to be in place as well. Whatever it was felt close, like she had just barely missed seeing it. She hesitantly walked toward the far end of the balcony, her heels clicking loudly on the concrete. As she peered over the railing on that side she found nothing unusual, just the steep drop down to L-Corp’s square where she could see the stage for the press conference tomorrow. The only thing her senses could detect out of the ordinary was a brief sound that she couldn’t quite place before it disappeared. It had almost been like the sound of ruffled cloth, like the fluttering of a cape in the wind. 

************************************************************************************

Kara sped over the desert terrain, astonished at the speeds she could reach in the open air. She knew J’onn was going to be testing her hard this morning but she didn’t realize it would be  _ this _ hard. This almost felt personal. 

She heard the burst of sound as a missile was launched at her, and quickly behind it another burst. 

_ Two at a time, huh? _ She could do it. 

She looked over her shoulder and saw the first missile coming up on her left. Tilting her shoulder down and to the right, her path veered and the locked-on missile followed. She looped around and headed straight for the second missile that was coming from the hills to the east. She pulled herself into a steady hover and looked between both missiles, one in front of her and one behind her now. Waiting until the very last second, she shot up out of her hover and the missiles collided. 

Unfortunately, she may have waited just a little too long. 

The explosion rocked her body. It didn’t hurt her but the energy from it made her lose her ability to remain in the air in a steady fashion. It took her too long to regain her composure and pull back into a level flight pattern away from where the two missiles collided. 

“Kara? J’onn says to come back now.” Alex’s voice sounded frustrated. And Kara knew her older sister was. Alex had been put in the middle of everything that was going on and Kara, though still mad at all of Alex’s secrecy, felt sorry for her. Alex was trying to advocate for Supergirl to be a DEO team member but trying to keep her job as head of the DEO’s most elite team too, something J’onn threatened her with every time Supergirl made a mistake on a mission that Alex had backed. She was also constantly hounded by their mother. Eliza seemed more determined to find out what happened to Jeremiah, her theory fueled even more with the deal Lillian forced onto Kara and the DEO, and Alex had to take the brunt of that because Eliza was making uncomfortable waves within the DEO in her quest to find the truth. Alex was getting hit on all sides, so much so that Maggie had come to Kara on her own and pleaded with her to do anything she could to make things better for Alex.

When Kara landed back at the DEO’s desert base camp, she found J’onn giving Alex a stern lecture. He quickly stopped it, obviously not wanting Kara to hear what he was saying. He then turned from them both and headed into the bunker without a word to Kara. 

“What did I do wrong this time?” Kara asked. She put her hands on her hips in a show of defiance. She was convinced that J’onn was making her mistakes out to be more than they really were. Yes, the oil spill had been bad but she had been able to make up for it with a few weeks of hard work and perfectly executed saves. She was getting better, even he would have to admit to that. 

“Are you alright? That was a bit of a close call on that last one,” Alex said as she ran her hands over Kara’s arms.

“I’m fine. What’s wrong now?” Kara asked again. 

Alex sighed and pulled Kara to a debriefing table. “You’re not following orders...again.”

“What?! I’ve done everything J’onn has told me to do! I only go out as Supergirl when he gives me permission. I always submit my follow-up reports. I’m basically living and breathing for the DEO! I report there every morning and stay until whenever he tells me he doesn’t need me. I–”

“And where exactly do you go after you leave the DEO every night? Mmmm?”

“I go home! I mean sometimes I stop and get some food or stop for coffee– Hey!”

Alex had flicked her finger hard against Kara’s forehead. “Crinkle.”

Kara rolled her eyes, forgetting that any lie was so easily spotted because of her facial expression. “Okay fine, sometimes I like to go sit on top of CatCo’s building. It has a nice view and it relaxes me to get away from everything and be alone for a bit.”

“CatCo’s building?” Alex asked in disbelief.

“Yes...”

“Don’t make me flick you again.” When Kara didn’t respond, only hung her head and started playing with the seam of her blue sleeve, Alex pushed on. “Your GPS tracking data says different. It says that you’ve been on top of Wayne Tower.”

“So sometimes I change it up...” Kara said softly, her lies too quickly unravelling before her. She took a glance up at Alex before letting her eyes go back to the ground at the sight. 

Alex had crossed her arms and with her hip jutted out and her eyes narrowed she looked so much like their mother. “Convenient that Wayne Tower is right next to the new LuthorCorp building. Convenient,” her voice started to raise and her tone became accusatory, “that the GPS says you always sit on the north side of the building which looks directly into Lena’s office! And last night Winn says you were actually on top of the LuthorCorp building!”

Kara merely kicked a pebble that was next to her chair. 

“I can’t believe you, Kara!” Alex continued. “I’m sticking my neck out for you at every turn and you go and do this! I just...” She turned from the table with a groan and her next words were gritted through her teeth. “Even if you hadn’t considered the ramifications to me and what we are trying to do here, you should know better with Lillian’s threats. Every time you’re in the air we are risking the world and Lena finding out that Kara Danvers is still alive. And every time J’onn and I send you out as Supergirl that risk has been weighed against the gains with your saves. But now you’re just parading yourself right across the street from Lena and risking so much more!”

“I only go at night. She can’t see me then, not without light and from that far away.” There was no sense telling Alex about being nearly caught last night. Even she had promised herself she would never get that close again. But Lena had looked so stressed and all she wanted to do was fly to her and confess everything. Take Lena into her arms and fly them away from everything and everyone. 

“We’ve been asked by the local FBI office to help with the LuthorCorp renaming ceremony this afternoon. They want us on the scene in the case that someone decides to cause trouble,” Alex said in frustration.

Kara jerked her head up. “Why would someone cause trouble?”

“Metropolis has dealt with what Lex did and moved on, in a way I guess you could say. But the rest of the world only knows the Luthor name as one thing: mass murder.”

“That’s not Lena’s fault!”

“You’re right, it’s not. But all it takes is for someone here in National City who lost a loved one or a friend during Lex’s attack in Metropolis to show up to the press conference and decide to make Lena pay for it. Many people just see the name Luthor and want revenge.”

Kara gulped. She had never thought of it like that. Lena had been safely in Europe when Lex had attacked Metropolis, and then when she was at MIT she was only surrounded by fellow students and professors who were impressed by her intelligence and compassion rather than her name. The rest of the world, though, didn’t know that Lena wasn’t like her brother. “I want to be there. I want to be on the team that goes.”

“Well J’onn was going to have you do it. The FBI explicitly asked for your presence. But your night time antics have changed his mind.”

“I’m going, Alex!” Kara rose from the chair. “I can either go as part of your team or I go on my own. Tell J’onn it’s his choice.”

Without waiting for Alex to respond, Kara shot into the air and made a direct path toward National City. She had barely made it ten miles when she heard the crackle of her COMS system. 

“Supergirl?” Agent Vasquez’s voice filled her ear. “The director says to meet Agent Danvers and our team on top of the Wayne Tower parking garage to be briefed before the press conference.”

Kara smiled in relief. “Thank you, Agent Vasquez.”

************************************************************************************

“I want to thank you all for coming. I know that as a Luthor I don’t exactly exude a persona that can be trusted but let me assure you that you can. My brother hurt a lot of good, innocent people.” Lena paused here and swallowed. She looked out into the crowd. There weren’t a lot of people. They had planned for at least a hundred but it appeared nearly half the seats were empty. What could she really expect as a Luthor though? “My family owes a debt, not just to Metropolis but to everyone, and I intend to pay that. By renaming my company L-Corp, we will usher in a new age of cooperation and community. Together we can build a brighter future starting here in National City.”

There was soft applause and frantic clicking from the cameras of the photographers just in front of the stage. Her eyes finally found Emily and Jess, just off stage to her right. They both gave her confident smiles and that fueled her on to her next segment. 

“L-Corp’s new mission is provide the world with sustainable technologies that will help us overcome our greatest problems. Air pollution, clean water, distribution of food. L-Corp vows to be a force for good and stand at the forefront of this movement. We will provide National City thousands of new jobs and–”

Something whistled past her ear, fast and sharp. It left her eardrum ringing and the hairs on the back of her neck standing. She looked behind her and saw the tell-tale sign of a bullet hole in the new L-Corp banner. The thought that whoever had fired it had probably now realized they had missed and that another bullet was most likely already in the air caused her to drop to the stage just as the glass podium exploded with the impact of the second round. 

The audience in the plaza, now very aware something was wrong, scattered with shouts and screams. 

Lena was trying to figure out which direction to run, when the third bullet hit the stage two feet in front of her. Before her mind could make a choice for her escape she was lifted off the ground. The pull on her to get her off the ground was a little too harsh but as the stage and the rest of the plaza shrunk beneath her, she didn’t feel unsecure. Whoever was holding her pulled tight, one arm bracing Lena’s back and the other tucked underneath Lena’s legs, as they sped over the city. 

Fuck, she hated flying, Lena thought. It was one thing to be in an airplane or helicopter but this was far worse. The sight of the city below her made her stomach turn so she wrapped her arms around the person’s neck and tucked her chin over their shoulder. The only thing in her sight now was a billowing red cape. 

For whatever reason her mind instantly went to Kara again. She thought of being in Kara’s strong arms, safe and sound, not flying through sky. It grounded her and settled her stomach so instead of pushing the memory away like she had been practicing to do, she let it flood her entire being.  _ You’re laying in Kara’s arms. You’re not hundreds of feet above the city. Everything is fine, you’re in Kara’s arms. _

At last the wind stopped roaring past her ears and she felt a jolt when they hit the ground. Her hero eased her legs down out of their arms but kept an arm around her when her knees started to buckle from the adrenaline and shock. Lena leaned into the other person’s body, her eyes clenched shut in fear.  _ It’s okay, you’re okay. You’re back in Boston and in Kara’s arms. Nothing is wrong. _

“Lena?”

A smile pulled at her lips. This memory of Kara was so, so real. Even Kara’s voice was right. She never wanted to leave this place where her Kara existed now. 

“Lena?” 

The voice this time was concerned and that made the memory of Kara fade. Lena slowly opened her eyes and was met with the sight of the House of El crest. And now rage quickly overcame the tranquility of her memory of Kara. With a disgusted groan she pushed Supergirl back out of her space and turned away from her. It was Superman’s fault that those aliens attacked Metropolis. If it wasn’t for him Kara would still be here. Supergirl may not have been directly involved but everything she embodied was just like Superman and Lena hated it.

“Lena?” Supergirl’s voice was filled with surprise. 

“Excuse me?” Lena whipped around but suddenly faltered as she finally looked the hero in the face. Those eyes. Those piercing blue eyes.  _ No _ . She shook her head in frustration.  _ Stop it. Stop thinking of Kara. She’s gone. She’s gone because of him. _

“I mean...Ms. Luthor...I...”

“Thank you for saving me, Supergirl. You can leave now. I don’t need any further assistance.”  _ Kara’s gone. Kara’s gone. This isn’t Kara. You’re making yourself crazy. Oh God, I’m going crazy just like Lex. _

“Lena–”

She sounded just like Kara, and Lena hated the thought of Kara’s voice being tainted by a Super in her mind. Lena stopped her sob long enough to grit out “Just go,” to the hero. 

Kara’s shoulders dropped. She had been so sure Lena would recognize her. How could she not? Lena looked like she was waging a war with herself and Kara was unsure of what to do. Clearly the sight of Supergirl angered Lena for some reason. Rao, this was not how she had expected this to go. How could Lena not see it was her beneath the red, blue, and gold? She’d have to come back but not as Supergirl. Maybe then Lena would finally recognize her. But even she knew she couldn’t risk that because that would be a direct violation against her deal with Lillian. She had been hoping that Lena would recognize her as Supergirl and they could trick Lillian but here Lena was pushing her away rather than embracing her. 

She stole one last glance at Lena and then slowly let herself start to hover above Lena’s balcony, not wanting her take off to startle or anger Lena further. 

“I know you’ve been watching me.” Lena’s voice was cold, laced with venom. “It was you on my balcony last night, wasn’t it? Was that the first time or was that the first time you almost got caught?”

Kara stopped in the air, stunned into silence at Lena’s hostility. She had never heard Lena be so cruel sounding. She had never seen how sharp her features were in such rage. 

“I don’t know what your cousin put you up to but I don’t need a Super keeping tabs on me. I’m not Lex. I’m here for a fresh start, let me have it.”

Without giving the hero time to reply, Lena pushed open the balcony door and entered her office, leaving Supergirl alone and confused in the air above the balcony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhhhh the angst! Sorry I've been emo lately so my writing is going to be as well :p
> 
> All typos and errors are my own.
> 
> Come yell at me @nevertobeships :)


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